New York Times, Wednesday, October 4, 2017

It was a big goal of mine to get a puzzle accepted into the Times before I turned 21, and I just barely got there. And boy, it was not easy. With six theme clues in the puzzle, it was tough to get them all to fit nicely, and it meant completely changing the grid and reworking the fill many times during the revision process. I learned a lot from it though, and I hope my next submissions won't require quite so much tinkering. I'm very happy with the final result.

As for the theme, I'd had the idea floating around for awhile but didn't think it'd amount to a full crossword's worth of clues. The first one I came up with was BY ITSELF, and I at the time I couldn't think of any more. But I revisited the idea, brainstormed a bunch, and managed to get six in total. My favorite is definitely BENEATH ME. I hope you enjoy this crossword as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Happy solving!

Fun debut! At first, I thought it was a simpler concept I'd seen before — listing the very next word in the dictionary AFTER HOURS as the clue (perhaps "house arrest"?) — but Evan's idea is so much better. Not only does "house party" come shortly AFTER HOURS, alphabetically … it's also described by AFTER HOURS! "Flanked" comes UNDER(neath) FIRE in the dictionary … but it's also described by UNDER FIRE! Loved it.

I appreciated how solid all the themers were. BENEATH ME was the only somewhat iffy one (sorry, Evan!), feeling like a partial without "That's" or "It's" preceding it. Five out of six is excellent. (AROUND NOON is a tad arbitrary, but I've heard it plenty to describe lunch plans.)

Tough task to debut with six themers. Evan did a good job with his layout, placing AFTER HOURS above NEAR MINT, and keeping UNDER FIRE well away in another corner. It's a variant on the "windmill" pattern many constructors use with just four themers, and it usually makes for good spacing.

I was worried about execution when I quickly ran into OER, RAH, SDS, all at the top. And there was quite a bit of crossword glue scattered about — DER, EDY, GAI, IRR, MES, ORI — but at least there wasn't another section quite so dense with it as the north.

And Evan did give us some strong bonuses in BROWNIE MIX, SONIC YOUTH, LEONARDO, DARE I SAY. I'd personally have preferred a smoother grid with fewer snappy bonuses, especially because the theme already tickled me. But I think this trade-off is a reasonable one.

Overall, a great idea, taking a concept I'd already seen to another level. The theme, plus all the great bonuses, plus the fact that it was a debut, were enough for me to overlook the glut of crossword glue. POW!