New York Times, Thursday, October 29, 2020

Greetings from Australia! As you read this, I am likely to be FAST ASLEEP! Let me fill you in (pun intended) on how this Aussie came to have his crossword appear in your world-renowned newspaper.

Christmas holidays in Australia are for surf, sun and sand... and for myself growing up, puzzles! Tucked inside a caravan north of Brisbane at Coolum Beach, is where I found a love for crosswords, wordplay and puzzles. While the holiday high times were spent playing on the waterfront, the down times were spent snoozing in the cool breeze, reading a good book or huddling around the camp table with my family searching our collective mental resources for crossword answers. I also enjoyed creating word puzzles for my family to try. I remember my first as a child was a word search that I couldn't stop beaming about around the caravan park.

But as I aged, my love of crosswords waned somewhat. See, unless you enjoy a good cryptic crossword (which at times I do), my experience of crosswords in Australia is that they are quite straight forward. No themes, no intricate construction, no wordplay, just the satisfaction of a completed puzzle. You can imagine my delight when I came upon the New York Times crossword app two years ago! It wasn't long before I was hooked again. Not to mention my ecstasy to find out that anyone can write and submit a crossword for a chance to have it published!

I enjoy all the NYT crosswords throughout the week, but I love, love, LOVE the Thursday crosswords. The mix of wordplay, complexity, and tricky clueing is my kind of puzzle! The first one I attempted to solve two years ago involved rebuses. I admit I had to cheat and look up the solution. I remember thinking, "What?! There's more than one letter in these boxes!... Amazing!!!" In my mind, it's no wonder that my debut submission is a Thursday puzzle.

As many constructors do, I came up with the revealer first (and you'll see that great minds think alike if you tried Robyn Weintraub's puzzle from 7/23/20). I soon realised, though, that my ambitions of having numerous theme answers that hold symmetry would be difficult to accomplish. It's not as easy as I thought to add a "t" and a "w" to other words to create meaningful and misleading clues. Further to that, creating the remaining clues without using "t" or "w" was also a strain. The letter "t" feels like it's in everything when all you're trying to do is avoid it! But through persistence, a rejection, some early constructions with very ugly fill, and a little help from Will, Sam, and the team, I have something I am proud to call my debut NO MATTER WHICH way I look at it.

A big thank you to the team of editors for the feedback and crossword writing tips that come with each submission. I am sure to try my hand at many more in the future. From Down Under, enjoy!

NOT NOW often would indicate "take away the letters NOW." What a fun idea to interpret it as NO T, NO W! I appreciate that a debut constructor make such an interesting mental leap.

I also appreciate that Kurt recognized the prior art in this theme genre. I had also thought of Robyn's puzzle, as well as several others, like this fun one from Tim Polin. It's great to see when a person has done their research.

Some of the clue/entry pairs worked better for me than others. The best ones are those where clue feels so inapt, or better yet, wildly incorrect — so much so that you want to dash off an angry email to Will Shortz.

"Tawny" means NO MATTER WHICH? No matter, my butt! Dear Mr. Stupid Shortz … (diatribe) … hit send!

Oh. That's "Tawny" going to "any"? Retract send!

I started in the upper right, knowing BACH's B minor mass, and I was off to the races. I filled in COARSE, imagining that sure, [Wrought] iron could be COARSE. Makes a lot more sense when you realize that the clue is actually [rough]! I bet a lot of solvers will miss that, though. We've highlighted the affected entries below. It's great that they're symmetrical, but it would have been better to make them stand out better somehow. Starring the clues would have given away the game, but that's better than solvers not realizing that there even is a game.

Not the smoothest grid in the world, with some wrought — er, rough — entries like OSMO, AMO, ERN, PALP (which I always confuse with PAP). It's an unfortunate byproduct of cramming extra short themers into the grid. Long across bonuses like SUPERCOP often create problems because they have to work in parallel with themers — no surprise that AMO and OSMO are direct results of the layout.

Overall though, great to see a debut from Down Under, and a fun one at that.