Dan Feyer author page

This crossword was designed to annoy Jeff Chen. He often talks about how it's a good idea to space out your theme answers for maximum flexibility. So what did I end up with? Every theme answer is adjacent to, or overlapping, another one.

My previous Sunday puzzle also had an overlapping stack at the center, so I wanted to see if that could work again. After I had the first two, last two, and middle three theme answers in place, I tried many, many different layouts to find the best spots for the last two pairs of themers. This one was the winner once I lucked into the southwest corner with fresh entries SLUSHIE, HYPHEN, PUSHBACK, and CHESNEY. (And ACTINIC, but I'm less proud of that one.)

The northeast corner was by far the hardest to fill, but because I was so enamored with that southwest, and I had tried so many grid configurations already, I didn't want to move or add blocks. (If you regularly read XWordInfo commentary, you know that moving blocks around is the right thing to do.) Anyway, I was locked into BRUNEI, GOTSORE, and EYEEXAM up there. The seven-letter slot at 43-Across was the biggest problem, because the ideal fill would be a phrase starting with GET (GET TO IT! GET ON IT! GET IT ON! GET IT UP! GET LAID! GET BENT! OK, now we're getting out of NYT territory). But I wouldn't let myself cross GOT with GET, so the current boring northeast is the best I could do.

I had a similar issue with 71-Down, where OPENLY would quite improve that little section (eliminating the need for TENNER/RASE, for instance) but dupes with INCAN OPENER. I don't think that kind of duplication is necessarily a dealbreaker for Will Shortz, who tends to be lenient about such things, but it's inelegant and I'd rather avoid it.

Overall I thought the freshness of some of the long fill, and the amount/amusement of the themers, would outweigh all the glue in the grid. As a solver, I like to see more new/unusual fill even at the cost of more junk. As a constructor... I'm a really good solver.

ANDREA:

This collaboration came about because in the summer of 2012 Dan Feyer and his lovely girlfriend Gretchen organized a fundraiser up in Napa Valley (where Gretchen grew up). In between rounds, Dan entertained up with a trivia game where all the answers had the initials NV, for Napa Valley. I thought that might make a good basis for a crossword.

To me, it would be funny and risque to have a puzzle called "Puzzle NV" so I suggested to Dan that we expand his list into a Sunday-sized puzzle. Never mind that although he is the five time ACPT solving champion, he had only constructed one puzzle and was reluctant to risk his one for one perfect creation/acceptance rate. (It pays to enlist geniuses as collaborators.) So I talked him into expanding the list he had, we found a half dozen nice solid pairs. Lucky for me, Dan wanted the challenge of constructing a Sunday-sized grid, which I've still not yet been able to do on my own. (My three solo Sunday attempts have not been accepted by any major publication.)

Before I knew it, Dan had created a fabulous grid with a crowning touch of stacking three of the theme answers. The hardest part was getting him to not be such a perfectionist and keep creating grid after grid. We settled on one and THEN tried to perfect it.