Andrew Kingsley author page

AK: I got to know Garrett last year in my American studies course at Riverdale Country School in The Bronx. Yes, Garrett was a terrific student, but he proved to be an even better crossword constructor.

GC: It was so cool to be in the classroom with Mr. Kingsley, a constructor I'd always admired. That class will always hold a special place in my heart, and Mr. Kingsley was a great and entertaining teacher (… except for the one time I fell asleep in the front row, sorry!)

AK: The inspiration for this specific puzzle came after I had cooked split pea soup for the first time. I discovered that what makes split pea taste so good is the pound of bacon the recipe requires. I approached Garrett with the theme idea, and it came together quite quickly. This is my second puzzle that looks like it has rotational symmetry but doesn't. I guess that's my thing now.

GC: While I'm sad to be leaving Riverdale, I'm off to The University of Chicago in the fall and am delighted to join an ever-growing community of crossword constructors (hi, Josh Kindler and Katherine Baicker!). When Mr. Kingsley and I started working together last year, we set a goal to get published in the NYT before I graduated, and I'm happy to say — with three weeks to spare — mission accomplished! Oh, and happy birthday, Mom!

ANDREW: This puzzle is a personal favorite (not just because it has my name at 24-Across). This was my first foray into Thursday puzzles, so I figured I'd mess with some crossword rule, and the two-letter rule seemed like a fun challenge. I quickly turned to John for help with the idea, and together we got the M-E-O-W letters to work without too much glue and awkward cluing. John gets all the credit for the apropos CROSS THE BORDER and I NEED SOME SPACE bonuses.

JOHN: I'm glad I got to work with Andrew on this one, our fourth Times collaboration. It was an inspired idea that was great fun to help shape into its final form. Andrew and I will also be collaborating on the fourth edition of Boswords, the crossword tournament we co-direct in Boston that is open to solvers of all levels. This year's version will be on Sunday, July 26 and you can find more information about Boswords here.

PAST: Three years ago today, my first NYT crossword was published. Back then, I only made themelesses, but lately, as you can see here, I've been experimenting with days of the week I've seldom tried. Look out for a Thursday (and maybe even a Sunday) from me soon!

PRESENT: I successfully presented my master's thesis in education at the University of Pennsylvania this past weekend. Because I'm concerned about how students think about their and others' identities, my thesis focused on how 9th-grade boys learn to think about aspects of identity such as gender, class, and race through literature.

FUTURE: I recently accepted a teaching position at the Riverdale School in the Bronx, so I'll officially be a New Yorker next year. But fret not, for I will still be hosting and running Boswords this summer with John Lieb. If you're in the Boston area on July 28th and want to compete in a crossword tournament, Boswords is for you. Registration and other information can be found at boswords.org. Hope to see you there!

Andrew: This puzzle started with the SE stack, as I had been trying forever to get PIXIECUT into a puzzle (my sister proudly donned this style for a while). When FLEXTIME and DOMINATRIX fell into place, I knew I was cooking. Then I hit PANSEXUAL (more and more I'm trying to incorporate queer-themed language into my themelesses to expose solvers to aspects and identities within the queer community) and was a happy man. While I'm bummed that COME OUT was not clued as I had hoped, I am so happy by the sparkle that John brought to the left side—a true collaborative effort.

John: It was great fun trying to fill the left half of this puzzle, working to build on the lively right half that Andrew presented to me. I'm excited to have our third collaboration appear in the Times. I'm also excited to be working with Andrew on the third edition of Boswords, the summer crossword tournament that we co-direct in Boston (with the help of an amazing group of constructors and volunteers!) The date is set for Sunday July 28 and you can get more info at www.boswords.org. Hope to see you there!

ANDREW: Another Kings-Lieb creation! Well, maybe more of a Ki-Lieb creation, since John did the lion's share of the work on this one. After Oxford Dictionaries declared POSTTRUTH as 2016 "Word of the Year," I knew it had to be a 1-Across. Thankfully for this puzzle (and sadly for everything else), facts are still flexible and POSTTRUTH is still relevant. NOPUNINTENDED was my other significant contribution (I sifted through a sea of dad jokes for the right clue, so I hope you groaned at the one I chose), and then John brought the sparkle with the other stacks.

JOHN: Writing a themeless from scratch is a daunting task, so when Andrew brought me a promising, half-filled grid and asked me if I wanted to fill in the rest, I jumped at the chance! This ended up being a "2-for-1" puzzle, as the last across entry in the first draft ended up as the seed for our first published collaboration last August. I was on a Mr. Robot watching binge at the time we wrote this and was psyched to get RAMI MALEK into the grid.

Also, Andrew and I are excited to be hosting the second edition of Boswords, Boston's crossword puzzle tournament on Sunday, July 29. Registration opens on June 15th and you can find more information at boswords.org, including info about last year's tournament. We hope to see some of you there!

ANDREW: John and I both teach at The Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, MA. I joined the faculty last year, so it was only a matter of time before we put our heads together to create some crosswords. This one began as a themeless which included the entry SPIN CLASS. John came up with the idea of people who spin things for a living, and we were off from there (although neither of us is a big fan of this exercise regimen). As a duo, we found we work nicely together, especially since we can pop into each other's office during free periods and talk shop. Look out for more Kings-Lieb puzzles soon!

JOHN: This puzzle was Puzzle #2 at Boswords, a crossword tournament that Andrew and I co-directed at our school on Sunday August 6. We are grateful to Will for allowing us to use this puzzle at the tournament, which had 149 competitors. It was a blast to both write this puzzle and to organize this tournament with Andrew! More information on the tournament can be found at boswords.org and we look forward to running it again next summer. The rest of the tournament puzzles, plus a few bonus ones, are available for purchase (for an Abe) at the site.

This puzzle started with the double stack of HERE'S HOPING and PRIZE INSIDE. How I got a grid of this shape in the end I'm not sure. This was still in a period when I built puzzles without the aid of a program, so that may explain it. But now I've put down my spears and cave drawings and learned how to use (Cross)fire.

I think I'm happiest with the clues on this one for two reasons. First, I love the fun facts, particularly SPANDEX, ANT, and SIXTIES. Second, most of the across clues are my own. When I first started constructing, I was such a grid hound that I gave little time to the clues in an attempt to submit as many puzzles as quickly as possible. As a nascent constructor raised on a diet of crossword blogs, I picked up their entry-fetish, where their writing focuses only on the hottest words in the themeless grid while overlooking the creative pop of the clever clues, which could make blander entries like CEASE FIRES or CEL come alive. While a puzzle need its lifeblood of OSCAR NOD's and GAME FACE's, I discovered that my early philosophy was fairly myopic. I await the day when a themeless is filled with purposely banal entries, yet the clues are the prize, and by themselves make the puzzle sexy. Here's hoping.

I am surprised by how quickly my second puzzle appeared. It couldn't have come at a more fitting time. I'll be graduating from Dartmouth College tomorrow! Crosswording has always provided a needed break from all the essay writing. It was also the way I began writing for the school's newspaper. I mostly just published the puzzles Will rejected (sorry, Dartmouth solvers). After my puzzles started getting accepted, I didn't have much material to send to the paper, so I became the film critic instead. Go figure. I can't wait to construct a few this summer on our back porch with my cat sunbathing next to me.

This one was accepted in April of last year. It was my first foray into the sub-70-worder realm and it was actually not as nightmarish as I had anticipated. The seed entry was SELFIE STICK (or as my friend aptly calls it, the narcissistick). Unfortunately, David Steinberg beat me to it with his February 6^th puzzle. But I'm much happier seeing selfie stick used in a crossword than in real life.

I was pleased to get MALL SANTA, I CAN EXPLAIN, and SAME SEX in there as well. Will and Joel were uneasy about SO DOPE, but we all felt like it's tossed around enough to be included, which is so dope!

Since this feels like my weepy Oscar acceptance speech, I want to first and foremost thank David Quarfoot for introducing me to crosswords. David was my calculus teacher at the Roxbury Latin School (where fellow constructors Sam Trabucco and John Lieb also hail from, and where I will begin teaching next fall!). Seeing that I was interested in other word games at school, he showed me the ropes of cruciverbalism. My first crack at constructing was for our school newspaper. I made the grid by hand, tore through the paper after too many erasings, and ultimately misspelled a word in the finalized grid. In spite of that initial trauma, I've been addicted ever since.

This was my first puzzle accepted by the Times, back in April 2015. The seed entry for this puzzle, POPCORN BRAIN, ironically got the puzzle rejected when I first submitted it. So I substituted PASSION FRUIT and redid the bottom half of the grid, and voila! I got THE RAVEN and EASY READ out of it, so the English major in me was pleased. Shout out to Will and Joel for improving many of the clues.

As for myself, I hail from Dedham, Massachusetts and am finishing up my senior year at Dartmouth College. I study English and film history, and am working on a thesis focusing on the cross-pollination of cinema and literature at the end of the nineteenth-century. When I'm not reading or building crosswords, I enjoy improv comedy, film criticism, and table tennis. Will, I'm coming for you!