Julian Kwan author page
1 puzzle by Julian Kwan
with Constructor comments
| E | S | S | A | Y | S | C | O | T | B | I | B | L | E | G | R | A | B | |||
| P | I | P | P | A | A | U | T | O | A | F | F | I | X | O | H | M | E | |||
| S | L | E | E | P | I | N | T | H | E | B | U | F | F | E | T | D | E | U | S | |
| O | V | E | R | O | K | I | E | R | B | I | R | A | S | S | L | E | ||||
| M | A | D | C | O | W | T | R | A | I | L | E | R | P | A | R | Q | U | E | T | |
| U | A | E | L | E | E | R | A | T | M | U | S | T | ||||||||
| N | B | A | T | Y | P | E | A | B | S | A | L | S | A | |||||||
| C | O | L | D | H | A | R | D | C | A | C | H | E | T | A | D | D | L | E | D | |
| I | D | L | E | S | O | I | L | R | O | S | A | N | N | E | I | V | Y | |||
| S | E | E | M | A | F | T | A | B | A | I | C | A | N | S | E | E | ||||
| Y | O | U | V | E | H | A | D | Y | O | U | R | F | I | L | E | T | ||||
| S | P | O | N | G | E | S | B | R | O | E | T | A | W | I | N | K | ||||
| O | H | O | L | E | S | B | I | A | N | W | I | I | E | M | C | E | E | |||
| P | I | P | P | I | N | L | E | T | S | M | A | K | E | A | D | E | L | A | Y | |
| E | N | O | K | I | O | S | I | R | I | S | E | L | S | |||||||
| M | O | R | E | O | N | B | A | S | E | R | E | F | ||||||||
| B | A | C | K | S | T | A | G | E | P | A | S | S | E | B | L | A | R | E | D | |
| L | A | T | I | S | H | C | P | R | W | A | Z | E | M | O | J | O | ||||
| A | L | O | E | U | N | S | O | L | I | C | I | T | E | D | B | I | D | E | T | |
| M | O | P | S | G | R | I | M | E | O | N | E | S | O | N | I | C | E | |||
| E | X | I | T | S | A | T | E | S | B | E | N | T | G | E | N | T | S |
I'm thrilled and honored to be making my NYT debut! I had been solving on and off since the mid-1990s but really picked it up over the past few years once I started solving on my phone. I've been constructing puzzles over roughly the same time period. I'd like to thank my mentor Mark McClain, who I found on the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory group on Facebook. He's always been eager to share his thoughts on my work and ideas. Without a doubt, he made this particular puzzle better by pointing out obscure words and areas overloaded with proper names. Oftentimes, it takes a fresh set of impartial eyes to notice these things. I'd also like to thank my wife Amy, who assured me that REIKI is, in fact, a thing, thereby saving me from having to refill that section.
The idea for this puzzle came to me when I remembered that Canadians supposedly like to say "eh" after everything. A small investment in a rhyming dictionary yielded me several word pairs like FILL / FILET, PARK / PARQUET, etc. I specifically stuck to words where the accent is on the "eh" syllable at the end. I originally had all my the themers clued as "what the person is really trying to say." For example, TRAILER PARQUET was "That's some fancy flooring for an RV, isn't it?" UNSOLICITED BIDET was "That weird bathroom fixture was pretty unexpected, wasn't it?" I guess the editing team thought better of that idea.
This is my first 21x puzzle. I must say, making this grid and filling it was not easy! Not for me anyway. It only took me 7 weeks, hehe. I'm pretty sure I gave up in frustration many times along the way, only to resume reluctantly a few days later. I ended up writing a computer program to help me sort through the hundreds of layout possibilities and identify the handful that had the most flexibility. That was exhausting. But I'm sure glad I powered through.
Many thanks to the editing team for their improvements to the clues and for pointing me in the right direction through all of my other rejections.