Brian Thomas author page

BROOKE: What a true honor to co-construct with Brian, one of my idols in themeless gridding, and to share the weekend with my day one crossword bestie Matthew. This was the first of many puzzles Brian and I have made together (here's another we blogged a few days ago) and I love its interconnectedness and all the great stuff we crammed into the fill and clues — I'm always into current music and literature refs, and love that we seeded this one with 28D (and that the neighboring 27D fell right into place), that we have the privilege of debuting 32D, and that we could highlight the work in 41A. Much appreciation to whichever geniuses on the editorial team wrote the clues for 6A and 53A!

BRIAN: Brooke is flat-out an awesome person to construct with — she is laser-focused on making every clue & every bit of fill as entertaining, fun, and inclusive as possible. Beyond what she highlighted, I really like the way the long central acrosses (from 24A to 39A) came together. They do everything — connect the big corner stacks, are lively phrases themselves, and even work well with all the central down 7s. We both are really proud of how the whole puzzle came together — this definitely won't be the last time you hear from us!

Very, very excited to seed this puzzle with the first female congresswoman in US history. JEANNETTE RANKIN is fascinating to read about — she was elected for two separate terms, in 1916 and 1940. As a devout pacifist, she was the only person to vote against the US entry into WWII (knowing the vote would pass anyways). And, for a small part of her life, she lived in my hometown of Spokane. I've spent time off and on for the past year trying to track down any information about her time here, unfortunately to no avail beyond where she worked. If you do happen to know anything, please let me know!

Shout-out to the editing team for cleaning up a few clues, particularly 33-D. Construction-wise, I began by getting the middle to work with CREAM SODA and NOT SO FAST, then the top right/bottom left, and finally the other corners. Always content to break up a triple stack into a double if it makes the fill cleaner — which is what had to be done in the NW/SE.

For those that know me, it won't be surprising to hear that this one started with CHOO CHOO TRAIN. The entry & clue popped into my head one night building tracks and bridges with my oldest child. Now we've got another toddler, which means double the CHOO CHOO TRAIN fun!

I'm always a wee bit nervous when opening up the preview after not thinking about a puzzle for a while. You grow and get better at constructing in the time between submission and publication, and what at the time seemed like the best puzzle ever made sometimes just...doesn't anymore. I still like this one though. All the stacks came out pretty snazzy and clean. The top right was the last area to fall, and I remember debating between GO GREEN and CANTEEN at 14-Down, ultimately landing on CANTEEN for cleaner short fill around there.

I also really don't know why a SHAVING KIT would come with oils and a brush. But, I am approaching 30 and still can't grow any sort of respectable beard. Happy to see that clue made it through editing, and shoutout to the editing team for their nice misdirects on STAMP and MISTS.

Finally, if you enjoyed this puzzle (or even if you didn't), I post a few free puzzles per month over at my blog Puzzles That Need A Home — come swing by!

ANDREA: The original idea was to have all these fun names for the devil (I'm a sucker for funny words like BEELZEBUB or BLATHERSKITE) with the reveal DEVIL MADE ME DO IT 15 spanning the center. But once joining forces with Brian, it evolved into SPEAK OF THE DEVIL with all the theme clues being, "We were just talking about you!" We wrote/clued it for midweek because we had a lot of non-Monday level words like HOLODECK and AEON FLUX (neither of which I even knew! But I wildly appreciated Brian's grid skills).

It's been so long from creation to publication that I just parsed MRSCRATCH as "MRS CRATCH" and wondered who/what that was! Early on, Brian made a cool version with HOT STUFF going down, which fed nicely into the hellish theme ... but it compromised other fill, so I didn't LOSE SLEEP over it.

I hope folks have hella fun solving this!

BRIAN: Like Andrea said, I don't remember too much from the making of this puzzle. I remember being similarly excited about the word BEELZEBUB. Once Andrea hit on SPEAK OF THE DEVIL as a cute revealer, we were off to the races!

We went through a few different iterations before we settled on this grid shape. It's interesting to me how much the relatively short seven-letter themers affected the rest of the layout.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was SHEL Silverstein's "The Missing Piece meets the Big O." The older of my TOTs is just getting into "bigger" books, so we will have to break that one out along with "The Giving Tree" soon.

Hoping this is a fun little way to kick off everyone's week!

Howdy! Excited to make my themeless debut and especially for a few debut entries — HOME REMEDY, BITE MARK, TANIKA, and MISSILE ENVY (which was the seed) in particular! I was really into the Cold War a few years back, learned of MISSILE ENVY from playing a board game with my brother, and had to seed a puzzle with it.

A few other thoughts:

• The bottom right was the toughest part to fill — grateful that TANIKA Ray was able to make it all come together.
• Sample size of one, but duct tape worked well for me as a wart-removal HOME REMEDY.
• I've never even heard of spanakopita until now (that one wasn't my clue), but it looks delicious and is now on the menu for next week.

And, while I'm happy with how the puzzle turned out, if I were making it today I'd try to break up the 15s and juice up a couple more of those middle length entries in the top right and bottom left corners.

Anyways, hope you enjoy!

Funny story; when I was constructing this puzzle, I was somehow under the wrong impression regarding black square counts - I thought there was a hard limit of 38! So I agonized over the block placement in the upper right/lower left. No matter what I tried, there was always an entry or two that stunk. Final choice came down to SISI or OTHO, and I figured SISI is somewhat inferable for a newer solver (even though it kinda stinks). Happy that the fill mostly worked out, though nowadays I'd probably just drop another block in and save myself the trouble.

This theme and the timing right before people make New Year's resolutions, fit nicely so I can do some imploring of my own. Reversal of the OZONE hole depletion is a great example of international cooperation working, but there's still much more to be done about climate change. The people who will be hit hardest by it are the poor, the needy, the ones least able to do anything about it. But we can make small changes that do add up. Maybe you can eat local, eat less beef (I suggest some tasty free-RANGE chicken) and more veggies. Maybe you can walk/bike/bus to work instead of driving. Maybe you can vote for someone who doesn't think climate change is a Chinese hoax.

ACME: This fun idea was all Brian's! I just talked him into making the theme phrases horizontal rather than vertical. He was going vertical to emphasize the idea of "High" jacks, whereas I thought horizontal would be easier to spot the theme (especially as it would probably be a Monday)... We put HIJACKS across the center, so we could emphasize that the "JACKS" were "Hijacked" from the answers. I love that the word HIJACKS has HIJ..K all in a row. Subtle extra layer of wordplay/letter fun!

Three of his four original JACKS made it intact (LONDON, RUBY, and BLACK), I just helped shore up a fourth for consistency, as Brian's initial idea of JACK FROST was more a thing, not a person.

Very pleased with his initial grid that had the LATIN LOVER and EXTRA EXTRA, as I am a sucker for both Italian men and extra Xs. This all came together very quickly and easily, considering we've never met. I had a lot of fun with Brian and look forward to another collaboration soon!

BRIAN: I needed some help fleshing out an idea, and who better to turn to for an early week puzzle than Andrea? Working with her was a blast - once she ironed out the theme the grid, came together nicely (at least we think so)!

I was very happy to work LATIN LOVER and EXTRA EXTRA in as bonus downs. SURE CAN is a personal fave, and with some scrabbly letters also sprinkled throughout I'm hoping there's something for all to love. Filling the grid is my favorite part of construction, and overall I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. The big north and south areas were toughest to fill — but escaping with just a couple dabs of glue isn't too shabby.

Most of the clues are hers too — they've just got a fun, creative spirit to them that really adds to the puzzle. Hope all enjoy! We've got a few other ideas simmering so keep an eye out for that in the future.

Hello everyone, I'm a trivia writer and host from Spokane, WA who is very excited to have my first puzzle published in the New York Times! I've solved crosswords off and on throughout my life, but about a year ago learned that anyone can make a crossword, and was off to the races.

This one came about while playing with CHECKERED FLAG for another puzzle — CZECHERED FLAG and FINNISH LINE popped right out, and I just had to create some matching entries. I also really enjoy solving puzzles where the theme clues tell a story, and hope that solvers think it's a fun component of the theme.

I went through a few failed attempts at filling the grid — having the 13-letter long entries stuck at the ends was a pain to deal with. Even so, in this one, the northwest corner still needed some cleanup from Will and Joel, who pointed out that I??I really constrains the grid. Lesson learned for next time. I was happy to see a couple of clues that made it through editing: [Switch positions] for FLIP FLOP is probably my favorite in the grid, and as the dad of the coolest one-year-old on the planet, [Like many a new parent] is right on the money for SLEEPY.

Finally, this puzzle runs on my mom's birthday. I imagine it's not that common for people to get birthday wishes in the New York Times, so Happy Birthday Mom!