New York Times, Wednesday, March 4, 2020

I am thrilled to have a puzzle published in the NYT during the "March for Women" week of Women's History Month. Many thanks go out to Rebecca Falcon for proposing this wonderful idea and to Will Shortz for his invitation to contribute a puzzle and for working with me and editing my puzzle.

My concept was to have the letter string O-N-E going up in random spots throughout the theme entries, and E-N-O* words (not etymologically related) going down. I tried to find phrases where ONE was embedded in a single word, but with a completely different pronunciation than ONE, such as the word ONE in TONER or CLOONEY, or spanning two words such as CLINT(ONE)RA.

I very much appreciate Will's willingness to publish my puzzle as I had requested — without circling or shading the upward O-N-E letters — so that solvers could suss out the ONE's on their own. In several of my recent puzzles with circles, some solvers commented that the circles made the aha moment too easy, and I wanted this puzzle to be appropriately Wednesday-difficult. Your thoughts?

Hope you enjoy!

For themes in today's genre, I always brace myself for the incoming blitz of THIS PUZZLE MAKES NO SENSE emails. It's even hard to figure out how to present the solution (we've added highlighting below) so that it's easy to understand. Explaining it — ONE UP hints that the sequence of letters O N E rises up, and then the rest of the answer continues from the start of the rise — still generates looks of confusion.

It might help to look at Tracy's previous two puzzles, one effectively the same but opposite in operation, and one playing on UP phrases.

Still don't understand? Do what I do: nod quietly with a knowing look. If nothing else, it makes people annoyed.

I enjoyed all the themers Tracy picked, all colorful and evocative. I would have preferred if all of the ONEs had gone across words of a phrase, like DRAGON EGG, but then again, this type of theme is confusing enough. Perhaps it's better to leave out yet another layer of potential puzzlement.

ONE UP is a perfect revealer, though it's not at the perfect placement. Curious choice, given that placing it at 72-Across seems possible.

It's also a shame that our old crossword friend Brian ENO didn't make an appearance as a bonus revealer! He could have been slipped into 63-Down, with just some minor adjustments.

Generally solid gridwork, with only a few gluey bits. Only nit is that I'd have tried hard to avoid HAMA, who's less minor than the easy to figure out SSE. As a general rule, it's best to avoid any short entry that hasn't been used much in the NYT.

I like this theme type every once in a while, and it was fun to get a bit of a trick on a Wednesday. It'd have been better to have more time separating this example from the previous ones, though — especially since Tracy was the one who wrote them. Adding a tiny bit extra to help elevate it from the pack, in the vein of ENO as a secondary revealer, would also have been great.