Dan Ziring author page
2 puzzles by Dan Ziring
with Constructor comments
See the 12 answer words debuted by Dan Ziring.
| G | G | G | G | B | E | A | U | T | F | F | F | F | ||
| R | A | U | L | A | M | I | N | O | A | R | T | Y | ||
| A | N | N | E | S | T | R | O | P | K | C | U | P | ||
| M | A | D | R | E | S | S | H | E | E | N | A | |||
| P | R | E | S | E | T | S | S | H | A | R | P | E | R | |
| S | Y | D | L | U | C | H | E | Y | S | S | T | |||
| B | A | S | I | L | ||||||||||
| S | N | O | W | B | A | L | L | E | F | F | E | C | T | S |
| A | T | B | A | Y | A | Y | S | O | M | A | H | A | ||
| C | H | A | T | T | E | R | T | R | A | P | P | E | D | |
| M | E | E | T | O | M | A | R | |||||||
| A | F | A | R | S | S | S | S | S | N | I | K | E | ||
| P | L | E | B | E | E | A | T | H | A | S | I | T | ||
| P | A | R | E | R | E | T | E | A | D | U | L | T | ||
| S | P | A | D | E | T | Y | R | W | A | N | N | A |
DAN: This puzzle was inspired by something that neither of us remembers at this point. I was playing around with building some Thursday-style puzzles and especially liked this idea but was having trouble figuring out a way to execute it cleanly. Quiara had given me feedback on prior puzzles on the Crossword discord, so I was extremely grateful to collaborate more closely on this one to bring it to fruition. Hopefully, you enjoy it — or for those that dislike rebus puzzles, at least most of the squares only have one letter in them.
As an aside, I'm happy the clue for 1-Down was kept, as that was a small homage to my grandfather's family name. He liked orange circus peanuts and disliked crosswords.
QUIARA: It's nice to finally have an NYT grid to my name, although I'll be honest with you — I cannot point to a single aspect of this grid and say, "Hey, I did that!" I definitely wrote some of the clues here, although in the past 18 months, I've forgotten which are mine and which are Dan's. (Not to mention which are the editorial team's — our original RAUL clue referenced Raul Julia's star turn in Addams Family Values, IIRC, but that's the only edit I can spot without consulting the original submission.) My biggest contribution to the grid itself was an alternate northeast corner where the rebus squares spelled out BULK instead of FORM. That one got left on the cutting room floor.
Ah, well — there are worse things in life to have your name attached to than a good crossword grid, especially one which you created in tandem with someone as lovely as Mr. Ziring. Getting the chance to work with Dan again would have made making this puzzle "worth it" even if it hadn't gotten the greenlight from the Gray Lady. (Not that I mind the prestige and the national audience that comes with running in the Times, of course. Nor the $250.) But yes, I love collaborating with other constructors, particularly new and aspiring ones, and especially ones who, like me, don't fit the mold of the "average" (read: older, whiter, dudelier) constructor. If that sounds like you, then hit me up. (Even if you think your grids kinda suck. Especially if you think your grids kinda suck! Trust me, my first handful of grids su-u-ucked. As Jake the Dog put it, "sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something.")
On that topic: Boswords announced their roster for the 2023 Spring Themeless League last week, and like with the last two, the final constructor will be determined via open submissions. (More details on their submissions specs here.) The one caveat is that, being for a competition, you can't publicly show off your grid for feedback. But, since I test-solve all the Boswords grids, I am one of the very, very few people to whom you CAN send your grid for feedback. Making a puzzle for Boswords was a career highlight for me, and it's an incredible opportunity for relatively unknown constructors to get their work seen — I'd highly recommend giving it a stab.
| C | A | M | I | S | T | O | R | T | T | R | A | P | ||
| L | E | E | C | H | O | V | E | R | H | E | H | E | ||
| A | R | E | H | A | R | A | D | I | O | E | D | I | S | |
| S | A | C | H | U | E | D | O | L | E | O | U | T | ||
| S | T | U | S | T | R | E | W | D | U | N | N | E | ||
| I | O | T | A | T | O | R | A | H | S | E | A | R | ||
| C | R | E | C | H | E | A | R | E | A | S | ||||
| S | H | O | R | T | F | I | L | M | S | |||||
| E | L | L | E | N | S | T | O | O | P | S | ||||
| K | G | B | L | Y | R | I | S | T | G | U | R | U | ||
| I | R | A | T | E | M | A | L | E | K | L | O | G | ||
| S | O | R | O | R | A | L | I | D | A | M | T | A | ||
| S | U | E | R | S | T | O | R | M | P | C | U | E | R | |
| M | O | L | T | M | A | I | L | P | A | I | G | E | ||
| E | N | Y | A | E | N | B | Y | A | R | C | E | D |
I'm thrilled to be making my NYT crossword debut! This puzzle was inspired by the March 3rd, 2021 crossword as I started thinking of other phrases that could be interpreted in a similar way.
Attempts 1-5 had the revealer THE BIG SHORT with 4 squares with the rebus entry BIG. This had some entries I liked (BIG BOXS TORES, BIG MAC), but some duds (IN A BIG WAY) and I didn't like having the revealer include the rebus square.
The next few iterations had the theme PIXAR SHORTS with the rebuses WALLE, CARS, UP, and COCO. This also had some entries I liked (OS[CARS]NUB) but some that fell flat (LEATHER[WALLE]T).
Once I realized that changing to SHORT FILMS could expand my options, I had a few grid attempts with COCO, TRON, BIG, and UP. I liked things like GAS[TRON]OMY, but the grid was too constrained and the theme set wasn't very tight.
Eventually finding IT and US as options was great, but the other true 2-letter movies are far less well known. I bent the rules a bit using ET (it's officially E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) and did the majority of my construction attempts (another 15 or so) with the theme set in the final puzzle.
Hope you enjoy the puzzle!