Drew Schmenner author page

I hope solving this puzzle was less difficult than trying to fall asleep on a train (or in a car or on a plane, for that matter). Thanks to Sid Sivakumar and Matthew Stock and their puzzle from early 2021 for inspiring today's theme. I briefly considered using the revealer SLEEPING BAG and transforming BAG to ZZZ, but once I realized there were enough theme answers to use SLEEPING CAR, I put the pedal to the metal and got to work.

There were some speed bumps along the way. The editing team accepted the puzzle with the caveat of revising the fill. I had to accept some trade-offs because I was using the second-most number of Zs in a weekday puzzle in the Shortz Era — the record is 18! — so I couldn't avoid some crossword-ese like LST. My initial grid had all the theme answers placed horizontally, but to minimize the questionable fill, I had to change my approach and position two of the theme answers vertically. Fortunately, that worked, and I was able to finally put the puzzle to bed.

Determining which car-related songs to include in this puzzle was the biggest challenge in constructing it.

First, the song titles had to have 15 letters or fewer to fit, so despite trying as hard as I could, I had to leave out "Little Red Corvette" by Prince. (Unfortunately, I couldn't split it symmetrically because LITTLE RED has 9 letters, and CORVETTE has 8.)

Second, the songs had to be iconic enough to be recognizable to the puzzle-solving audience, so I couldn't scour the "Car Talk" archives on NPR for any of the humorous deep cuts Tom and Ray used as bumper music.

Finally, I wanted the songs to mention cars explicitly in the title, so sorry, Boss, but I didn't include "Born to Run" despite its great lyrics like "chrome wheel, fuel-injected, and stepping out over the line."

Considering the limitations, I'm happy with the four songs that made the cut, especially one of my favorite songs ever — "Fast Car".

Since I live in a Bay Area beach town, I wish I could say that witnessing a majestic Pacific sunset compelled me to construct this puzzle. It's often foggy here, though, and as dusk nears, I'm usually occupied with my two young girls.

The real inspiration for this puzzle was Lynn Lempel's excellent 2019 puzzle. I looked for a way to add a new wrinkle to this theme concept. After finding the revealer, I was glad to find a symmetrical pairing (SUNNI ISLAM) that hid SUN with a different pronunciation, plus the other three theme answers that hid SUN across word breaks.

I'm not the only constructor who has recently found inspiration from the sun. I solved Max Lauring's offering in late April more quickly than a typical Thursday because his grid shared one identical theme answer and one similar one with mine.

As for the fill, I could have upped the word count from 76 to 78, but I hope the bits of glue like ACS and the partial ONE I were worth the tradeoffs for the long across answers like THEME SONGS and MUSIC SCENE.

I'm thrilled to make my NYT debut! Thanks to the editorial teams at the NYT, Universal, and WSJ, as well as the constructing community, for their gracious and encouraging feedback. XWord Info has been an indispensable resource. My friend Mike connected me to constructor extraordinaire Ian Livengood, who showed me the ropes, and fellow constructor Michael Lieberman has been an invaluable sounding board for my half-baked ideas. Most of all, thanks to my wife for her patience and support, and to our two young girls for helping me rekindle my love for wordplay.

The theme came to me gradually. First, Sally Hoelscher's 2020 puzzle featuring First Lady memoirs inspired the idea of using authors as themers. Then, during Zoom trivia with friends, my team answered a question about authors who wrote only one novel. Finally, a few weeks later, I realized the revealer could apply to those authors.

This puzzle not only taught me about construction but also about what answers to include. My first idea was to use book titles as themers, but while the titles didn't work symmetrically, the authors did. At first, I wrestled with including MARGARET MITCHELL. Although I loved the theme and thought it would only work if I paired her 16-letter name symmetrically with the 16-letter revealer, I was ready to scrap the puzzle entirely due to the novel's racism. However, when it dawned on me that I could split the revealer symmetrically and include ANNA SEWELL instead, I knew the puzzle could still work.