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Lynn Lempel is always a joy to edit because a) her grids are so clean and b) her clues are so good. I rewrote only eight clues in her entire puzzle.

– puzzle by Lynn Lempel

I've noticed that the crossword blogs often comment on constructors jamming in the high-value Scrabble letters (J, Q, X and Z). It's a good point that these shouldn't be used to the overall detriment of the fill. However, by virtue of their rareness, they tend to increase the freshness of a puzzle's vocabulary. So all things being equal, I like them. Case in point: the upper-left corner in Brendan's puzzle, which has two J's and an X.

– puzzle by Brendan Emmett Quigley

While I don't usually like quip themes so much, this joke seemed fresh and made me laugh. It's a shame about the three entries containing "IT" (20A, 58A and 38D). But because "it" is such a minor word, this duplication doesn't bother me so much.

– puzzle by Joe DiPietro

In the first version of this puzzle, which I sent to test-solvers, the clues for 17A and 58A did not reference the three swimming "fish" symbolized by black squares in the middle of the grid. However, after only one of the four testers noticed the fish, I added bracketed remarks so that solvers could appreciate the extra layer to the mini-theme.

– puzzle by Bruce Haight

An earlier version of this puzzle had the answer CHECKERS MATCH at 24A, clued as "'Jumping' competition [the Nixons]". One of the puzzle testers, though, Frank Longo, pointed out that the Nixons' dog Checkers died in 1964, five years before Nixon took office, so Checkers was never a WHITE HOUSE DOG (62A). That was a great catch, preventing an error from getting into print. On top of that, Frank reworked the upper-middle portion of the grid with the new theme entry HER EXCELLENCY. Thank god for Frank!

– puzzle by Elizabeth C. Gorski

I debated for a long time whether or not to highlight the four hidden language names in this puzzle's grid ... but ultimately decided it would be more enjoyable if solvers had to find the hidden names themselves. Hope I'm right!

– puzzle by Dan Schoenholz

As Jason noted, when I first accepted this puzzle last spring, the answer at 16A was PEROG/ATIVE. Perhaps I didn't notice the misspelling because the entry was broken into two parts. Anyway, it wasn't until I came to editing that I thought "Hmm, that doesn't look right." I returned the grid to Jason for a fix — which he managed to do with even better fill than before. I hope the puzzle's trick gives solvers a nice "aha!"

– puzzle by Jason Flinn

This Tuesday-level puzzle is timed to coincide (as closely as possible) to the 75th anniversary of "The Wizard of Oz," which will be next Monday. The intersection of HEROINE (23D) through three theme entries is particularly elegant. The circled O-Z in the lower-right is a nice touch, too.

– puzzle by Sam Buchbinder

As I may have mentioned once, SDI (4D) is an entry I'd like to ban from crosswords, as it's a long out-of-date initialism. But here, since it crosses the lovely stack of BBQ SANDWICH, SAUDI ARABIA, and TRAIN SIGNAL, I had to make an exception.

– puzzle by Sam Ezersky

Big props to Frank Longo for helping me edit this puzzle, which jointly took us many, many hours. More than half of the clues are editorial changes. Our goal was to write clues that sound as normal as possible. Most of them, I think, turned out pretty well. And the ones that don't sound normal (like "Umber at the opera," "Sci-fi character remembered for her large bus," and especially "Program that asks 'Are we aloe?,' e.g.") show a wacky humor. I know some solvers will hate this — it's not a crossword, blah, blah, blah — but once in a while, it's nice to shake things up.

– puzzle by Timothy Polin

One tiny thing I debated on this puzzle was whether or not to clue UH-OH (42D) as "Oops!," as the main theme answers are. But doing so would naturally have led solvers to look at its symmetrical mate, DREW (21D), which cannot be clued as "Oops!," causing a letdown. It would have looked like the constructor had tried to do something but failed. So ultimately I decided to clue 42D nonthematically.

– puzzle by Greg Johnson

A few weeks ago Vic Fleming visited me at my home in Pleasantville, N.Y., on his drive from the South to New England. We played table tennis at my club, had dinner together, and talked shop. Good fun. He's not a bad table tennis player either! Dinner would have included Vic's friend Bill Clinton, who's a big New York Times crossword solver, and who lives in next-door Chappaqua — but, unfortunately, Clinton was away that evening.

– puzzle by Victor Fleming

Is BRA SALE (63A) a legitimate crossword entry? Is it a "thing"? I debated a long time about this, ultimately deciding it sneaked by. Sometimes a good clue can salvage a weak entry, and I thought this one made the answer work.

– puzzle by Ned White