Lawrence Barrett author page
1 puzzle by Lawrence Barrett
with Constructor comments
See the 5 answer words debuted by Lawrence Barrett.
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NOKI: I retired to Portugal over six years ago, thinking it would be easy enough to hop back to see DC family and friends while shaving off significant flight time to visit relatives in Thailand. That was true for the first five years. But last year's waves of lockdowns have thwarted many travel attempts and have certainly intensified the sense of distance.
Throughout all of this, my dad & I kept our connection by solving crosswords online together. Last year, we seized on the idea of making puzzles together: We kicked around ideas, made some awkward puzzles, and unsurprisingly, got several rejections.
Finally, Robyn Weintraub kindly volunteered to mentor me via the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory. She helped tighten our themes and raise our standard for fill. We took 30+ stabs at this puzzle before finding one good enough to submit. Even so, we still needed a final assist from Wyna Liu & the NYT puzzle editors to get it over the finish line. We have a lot of people to thank for this debut.
The idea for this specific puzzle arrived in my brain as NASA's Perseverance made its landing back in February. Something about seeing that little rover land so far from home hit home for me. Given the theme, I tried to evoke Space Invaders in the grid. It may show up better if you squint.
Whether you and your loved ones are near or far, we wish you health, happy solving, and a very merry holiday.
LAWRENCE: I have been a fan of crosswords from an early age. When my daughter was in grade school, she was interested in what I was doing while eating breakfast, and I can remember doing half of a puzzle, including partial answers, and helping her finish the puzzle. I think this kindled an interest for her, and that interest took hold during the pandemic, and led to a shared interest in learning how to make a puzzle.
I can trace the origins of this NASA theme to my first job as a junior engineer working for IBM on the Instrument Unit (IU) for the Saturn Apollo program.
Kudos to Robyn Weintraub for her help and encouragement on our early attempts, and thanks to the NYT puzzle crew to get this one into print.