Christina Iverson author page

RACHEL: I'm glad to be back in The Times with Christina, a fantastic constructor (and editor!). This puzzle collaboration began after I used the word CROMULENT to describe a word that Christina and her co-constructor Caitlin Reid used in their banger June 30, 2022 puzzle (our working title was"A Perfectly Cromulent Themeless"). Christina had the brilliant idea to use a diagonal grid, and we split the construction and cluing 50/50. I hope you enjoy the solve!

CHRISTINA: As Rachel mentions, she used the word CROMULENT in her Wordplay write-up of one of my puzzles last summer. I had been in the middle of making a themeless puzzle featuring the entry, but it just wasn't coming together. I reached out to say how happy it made me to see her use the word CROMULENT, and that I wanted to put it in a puzzle some day in an effort to embiggen people's vocabulary.

She wrote back that it sounded like a seed for a collaboration. Two heads were definitely better than one, and it was fun pulling this one together!

As Will mentions in his intro, the first draft of this puzzle was an 11x11 grid where every single clue was an emoji. The theme entries were things like for FASHION ICON and for MIRROR IMAGE. I eventually expanded it into a 21x21, but dropped the emoji clues and just kept the fundamental idea of using visual puns for theme entries. I sketched these pictures on the back of an envelope and took photos of them, which I pasted into a Word document with the rest of the clues. I had assumed the editors would find a professional illustrator, but they liked using my originals.

We're excited to share a byline in The New York Times for the first (but hopefully not the last!) time. The two of us have collaborated on several other puzzles, which have appeared in The LA Times, Crosswords Club, and Universal Crosswords.

Another project we've worked on together is the Grids for Kids charity puzzle pack, for which we both volunteered as editors. We vetted themes (which are all related to parenting!) and helped edit a suite of puzzles for kids and adults. With a small donation to a kid-centered charity of your choice, you can download the puzzle pack, which consists of 17 themed puzzles, 2 cryptics, and 6 puzzles for kids. We're both parents of young children, Taylor with a 2- and 4-year-old, and Christina with a 3= and 5-year-old, so we were particularly inspired by this project.

Finally, a quick plug for Taylor's side project, Lemonade Disco, a platform for new constructors to showcase their talent in a supportive space. A new suite of puzzles is available every two months, edited by Taylor, Shannon Rapp, and Steve Mossberg.

ACME: After Christina and I did a puzzle about going into labor and delivering a baby, I got to think about what else is delivered? Babies, the news, pizza, milk (in the Olden Days) mail/Amazon packages (in the Newen Days). We thought it'd be fun to think of films with those words in the titles, with the reveal being "Deliverance"… a pivotal film of my adolescence.

"Licorice Pizza" was out in the theaters, but we weren't sure it would stand the test of time.

The tricky part was a way to unite the films clue-wise. So we focused on the setting where the actors "deliver" their performances. I think it's pretty tough without at least one prominent actor's name attached (Julia Roberts, Holly Hunter, Burt Reynolds), but space limitations overruled.

As a serious movie buff, I love this puzzle. And I loved working on a "sequel" with Christina!

CHRISTINA: Andrea is a pleasure to work with, and I'm happy to share a byline with her again! When this puzzle comes out, we will have just seen each other in person at ACPT (The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament). Maybe one day we'll make a puzzle together that has nothing to do with delivering babies!

CHRISTINA: Tom and I met at ACPT through our mutual friend Andrea Carla Michaels, and connected over our shared Minnesota roots. We discussed themeless construction, and how sometimes when working solo we end up not knowing when to stop tinkering with a grid — we both had found ourselves frequently not being satisfied enough with a grid to move on to writing clues. My computer is full of themeless grids sans clues!

Collaborations, I have found, are a nice motivation for getting a puzzle over the finish line. We thought it would be fun to team up on a Saturday-level puzzle — the only day of the week Tom was missing to hit for the cycle. I'm excited to share a byline with him as he reaches the milestone!

TOM: Such a privilege and pleasure to team up with Christina! She provided the awesome seed entry/clue in THERMOMETER [Cold shower?], which I incorporated into a grid with the central stagger stack, and we took turns filling sections from there.

We hope the puzzle brought you a smile or two along the way!

CHRISTINA: I am SO excited for Scott to be making his NYT debut! Scott and I have made several puzzles together, and this is one of my favorites. We initially made this as a 15x15 puzzle. The entries on the bottom were mostly the same as these, but instead of having longer phrases on top, we had 4 and 5 letter words that became other words with an ON. "TONY" was clued as "Ty, after Movin' on up," etc. The NYT team liked our long entries but felt the gimmick was a little too one-note. I suggested reworking the idea as a Sunday, and this is what we ended up with.

Scott did most of the grunt work on this one — sorting through a long list of words that are other words with/without "ON," and compiling a list of any that were potentially promising in a 4-page document. He has a knack for wacky clue writing, and most of these were his. He has what it takes to be a great constructor: patience, a good sense of humor, the ability to internalize feedback, and a willingness to work hard. We have more puzzles coming out in other outlets, including the LA Times and The Atlantic, so keep an eye out for his byline :)

SCOTT: The old TV sitcom theme song this puzzle is based on has long had a special place in my heart. It's a tribute to hard work and perseverance and a reminder to occasionally take a moment to celebrate the fruits of your labor, like the Jeffersons do in the opening credits of the show. All while never forgetting that you didn't get there alone. That's not to mention the uplifting gospel choir rendition of the song — I dare you to listen to it and not tap your foot!

I love the cluing stage of puzzle-making, and I admittedly (much too often) think I'm pretty clever with clues. But Christina's clue for ‘TIS THE SEAS is one of my all-time favorites. I still grin every time I read it… pirate voices start jabbering in my head!

Christina showers me with accolades in her notes, but we both know this puzzle would have never gotten off the ground without her magic touch. Only one of us is a crossword rockstar (hint: not me). As noted, hard work alone isn't always enough… we all need the support of others to succeed. So, thanks, Christina, for bringing me "up in the big leagues" with you!

CHRISTINA: I'm thrilled to be sharing a byline with one of the best themeless constructors in the business! Caitlin and I connected three years ago when I reached out because we were both stay-at-home mom constructors at the time. We bounced ideas around relating to nursery rhymes, but never ended up making a themed puzzle. About a year and a half later, we reconnected and made this puzzle, with I'M A LITTLE TEAPOT as a seed. As the grid evolved, only the TEAPOT remained, but I think the puzzle is better for it.

I learned so much from Caitlin about themeless construction. Her puzzles are always so sparkly and clean, which I always strive for in any puzzle. She pushed me with this one to keep reworking it until we were 100% satisfied with every section.

CAITLIN: As Christina mentioned, we've been looking to collaborate on a puzzle together for a while now. I'm excited that that time has finally come!

Christina is a pleasure to work with and diligently aims for clean, fun fill. It's no wonder the LA Times wanted her for an assistant editor! A lot of my favorite fill and clues we submitted were hers like 57-Across and several other cute ones that sadly ended up on the cutting room floor. I also loved the editing team's clue for 18-Across. Hope you enjoy the puzzle!

CHRISTINA: As a lifelong reader and a huge fan of classic literature, I was very excited when Katie pitched this idea to me. She had already come up with most of the entries here but felt stuck and wanted to bounce ideas off of someone. I'm glad she chose me! This is one of my favorite puzzles I've worked on.

We had some other great entries, but decided to add the constraint of adding exactly one syllable to make an author's name. We also decided to stick with what we hope are very recognizable names.

Some of my favorite rejects that didn't fit or meet our constraints:

• [Just MUST read "The Captain's Daughter" ?] NEEDS A PUSHKIN
• [Finishes "North and South" ?] RUNS OUT OF GASKELL
• [Tosses "The Great Gatsby" against the wall?] THROWS A FITZGERALD
• [Stack of "Ulysses," "Finnegan's Wake" and "Dubliners" ?] BUNDLE OF JOYCE

KATIE: This puzzle would not be where it is today if I hadn't asked Christina to come on board. I had been trying to get a set to work for months, got happy with it, even made a fully filled in (and clued!) grid, then changed my mind and scrapped the whole thing. I began doubting myself and almost parked in my file folder with other half-baked ideas.

But I knew the theme had merit if I could just get the right mix. When I pitched it to Christina, she quickly came back with so many options I hadn't thought of. I didn't know at the time that she was such a classics fan. We had a lot of fun making this puzzle (way more fun than I had agonizing over it alone), and I'm really proud of how it turned out.

CHRISTINA: Oof. This puzzle. My very first submission to the NYT was a puzzle using rebuses in this style. Besides just being a generally terrible puzzle, the theme entries had nothing tying them together. Sometime in 2020, Katie and I were working on a different puzzle about body parts, and I suddenly realized a lot of the phrases we were playing with had elements that would work well with a rebus, which led to this puzzle.

While this is one of my favorite ideas for a puzzle, the technical aspects made it an absolute nightmare to create. Since the entries are not symmetrically placed, it was really difficult to build the grid around them. Then, I can not believe how hard it was to fill a grid with entries that don't contain any body parts! Every time we had a grid that we liked, one of us would go, "Oh noooo, how did STINKEYE get in there?!" (etc., etc.,)

Our first submission had just "LEGS" stretched instead of ONE'S LEGS, and a couple of other entries the editing team didn't like. The feedback they gave in their rejection (which was decidedly a "no," and not a request for revisions) made me think maybe, just maybe, if we redid the puzzle with a few different entries, they'd go for it. I'm so glad they liked the changes enough to bite the second time around because this version was even harder to construct. Katie was a joy to work with, though, as always!

KATIE: When Christina approached me with this idea, I had never made, or even thought about making, a rebus puzzle with this kind of visual representation for answers. It reminded me of my elementary school teacher who used to hand out these types of brainteasers every morning, and I remember feeling oh so clever when I figured them out. (Still do, actually.)

I enjoy solving this style of puzzle, so I'm glad Christina wanted to work with me on this. It was a long and arduous path, and I learned a lot about constructing technique in the process. While it was helpful that we could move things around without worrying about symmetry, the loss of that constraint meant that there was a lot of grid trial-and-error. And we did it twice! We both believed in the idea, and I'm glad we took a punt to rework and resubmit. For the visualizations, we originally imagined the boxes for 7-Down being stretched into rectangles, but the editing team felt this was unnecessary in the end.

Like many of my puzzles, this was inspired by my son's interests. I thought it would be fun to put bugs in a puzzle, and "working out the bugs" seemed like a crossword-friendly phrase. I initially submitted a totally different interpretation on the phrase in the summer of 2020, where bugs were "worked out" of long phrases in the grid, leaving a garbled string of letters. Not surprisingly, they passed on it. After having the idea to put the bugs in the clues, I had two more rejected puzzles before the team agreed to workshop with me on the concept ... then multiple proposed theme sets before I got a green light to make this grid. So, it took a long time to work the bugs out of this puzzle!

Some of my clues that I had initially proposed were very contrived, and it took a while to get it in my head that the clues should read very naturally. My clues like, "Man tissues" hiding "mantis" and "Crick ethics" hiding "cricket" were nonsensical and confusing. I still kinda like my weird clue about Taylor Swift's hit song "Wildebeest Dreams," though.

The original title was Beta Version, and the clues with bugs were not italicized. I appreciated that the editing team was willing to share with me their thoughts on the changes, which I trust are for the better!

CHRISTINA: I reached out to Andrea a little over a year ago to see if she'd be interested in a collaboration. I love the collaborative process and have learned so much from each constructor I've worked with, so it was fun working with a pro like Andrea!

The idea I originally pitched was a lot more convoluted, with some wacky phrases relating to labor. She suggested doing a simpler Monday puzzle, and we came up with this. My daughter was a newborn at the time, so I clearly had birthing on my mind! I also had "Here Comes My Baby" stuck in my head for a long time while this puzzle was in the works!

ANDREA: As Prissy said in GWTW, "I don't know nothin' about birthin' babies!" But I do know this collaboration was a labor of love! Though virtual strangers (no more!) Christina and I discovered we share Minnesota roots and we had so much fun and laughter putting this together… And I love the idea of two making a baby without no men in sight … how 2020 is that?!

CHRISTINA: This puzzle came very far from my initial idea! I wanted to make a domino themed puzzle for my domino-obsessed son, with pieces that toppled over in the grid. I asked Jeff to work on the idea with me because he is so good at tricky concepts like this. We threw around all sorts of ideas. Sometimes an idea would seem great in writing, but when we'd try implementing it on a grid, it would be total chaos. We tried other moving parts ideas, like magnets and puzzle pieces, and eventually settled on this.

Initially we had the puzzle in the middle with puzzle related phrases around it, but once we settled on the idea of silly phrases describing putting a puzzle together, it made more sense to put them from top to bottom. I like the idea of someone yelling, "Come on man, get it together!" at someone solving a jigsaw puzzle.

One entry that didn't end up working due to mirror symmetry was "SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED" which is a shame!

Our original grid didn't have the puzzle piece outlines shown in the bottom, but it's probably a good addition from the editors. We thought it was funny to imagine people getting out tiny scissors and trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

JEFF: Christina is being kind to me — some of my early concepts were worse than "total chaos." Think John Nash in "A Beautiful Mind." The pieces ... didn't all fit.

KATIE: I loved this puzzle idea when Christina pitched it to me. We both have young children (mine are 8 and 4), and the thought of the little one saying some of these phrases made me laugh a lot, especially LOCKER WOMB TALK, which didn't make the final cut in the end, but still makes me smile. Christina is a wonderful mentor. She is very easy to work with, and I am grateful to her for sharing her knowledge and collaborating with me. I couldn't be happier to have my debut with her and on a Sunday! Also, shout out to her dad for connecting us.

When I was a kid, I would take the books of Sunday puzzles that my dad always had around on summer vacations and fill in one or maybe two of the easiest answers on every page. This probably annoyed him, but he never said anything, and I felt very proud to have contributed. Now we solve the Sunday together over FaceTime most weeks. I wrote him a (non-symmetrical) puzzle for his 70th birthday a few years ago but didn't try serious construction until last spring, during the UK's first lockdown. As a stay-at-home mom trying to handle home-school, puzzle construction has offered a welcome distraction in the evenings.

CHRISTINA: Katie and I connected when she read an interview with me on my dad's blog. She reached out to him to see if I was interested in mentoring her. I gave her some feedback on some puzzles she had made, and we quickly ended up collaborating. Katie is a fast learner and a great brainstorming partner. You will definitely see more from her!

This might be my favorite puzzle I've made. It was inspired by a real miscommunication when my toddler (2 at the time) said he wanted to weed. I assumed he meant "read," and "weed between the lines" just popped in my head. I thought it was a good theme entry for a puzzle and pitched the idea to Katie. It turned out my son really did want to weed, though.

We had a great theme set picked out but then realized that some of the entries had extraneous R's and W's, and so we brainstormed more to make sure we didn't have any extras in there. We also tried to keep it to words where the sound changes, but it's more than just a letter swap (i.e., ROCK to WOK, and not RINK TO WINK). Some of my favorite entries that didn't make it for one reason or another:

• THE WEST IS HISTORY [Headline after the Yellowstone Caldera erupts?]
• LOCKER WOMB TALK [Little chat about pregnancy between classes?]
• A CALCULATED WHISK [Beating the eggs at just the right second?]
• ICE SKATING WINK [Flirty move after landing a triple axel?]

AMY: I'm so tickled to be making my NYT puzzle debut!

I'm a retired Broadway casting director currently living in Brewster, NY. My mom and I always solved the Sunday puzzle together. I started doing the weekly during a two-week jury duty stint (it took me the entirety of the two weeks to finish a Monday puzzle, but since I was a jury duty prisoner, I surely had the time). I only got interested in construction a few years ago through the JASA class. I attribute the origin of my love for words and wordplay to a childhood of watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fractured Fairy Tales, and Mr. Peabody and Sherman cartoons.

Thanks, Christina, for your patience with this novice.

CHRISTINA: Amy and I connected through the Facebook collaboration directory. She had commented on the group that she was full of ideas but didn't really enjoy grid work. I love working on grid design and fill, but at the time, a year ago, I was really struggling with fresh ideas (I blame pregnancy brain). I also liked the idea of working with an unpublished constructor and sharing what I'd learned from my mentors when I started the year before. I reached out to see if she'd be up for a collaboration, and she emailed me a whole bunch of fun ideas. We ended up making three puzzles together, including one in The Inkubator earlier this year.

The theme set Amy sent originally included other longer phrases like BOBS FOR APPLES as "Mr. Dylan loves Granny Smiths," which I think is pretty funny, but we decided to make it more consistent with these two-word phrases. It was a fun challenge to make this grid with many short theme entries rather than fewer long entries.

This was my first accepted puzzle made without direct input from a mentor.

The original theme set had HORSE SENSE instead of THIMBLERIG. Will and the team liked the theme, but asked me to get rid of HORSE SENSE, since the token is really the "horse and rider," and is less iconic than the other tokens in the puzzle. I felt a little worried that I wouldn't be able to come up with a clean grid with their suggested replacement "THIMBLERIG," since it seemed like a fluke that I pulled off a grid with six theme entries as it was. I did end up having to do a total grid re-work, and looking back almost a year after finishing it, I wish I could get rid of some of the crossword-y fill like EEO and DIALER.

Thanks to the editing team for working with me on this one, with multiple drafts (including an embarrassing submission with the typo BOOTMAMP in the grid). A lot of my clues were changed (for the better), but I was glad to see AMY Klobuchar still represented, and my clue for RINGO Starr unchanged.