Michael Hawkins author page

The original submission for this puzzle featured an entirely different northwest corner. The editors liked it, but felt one of the crossings would be unfair, and asked if I could tweak it. Unfortunately it wasn't a simple edit and my "ultrafresh 1A" (their words) was nixed in the process. That debut word must wait for another day.

I'm disappointed to see my clue for 22-Down (Part of a spotty work history?) get the axe, but I'm glad to see they kept some of my favorite clues, including 39-Across, 44-Across and 1-Down.

JOHN: Normally, it would be a safe bet that two grid spanners are seed entries. But in this case, Michael started us off with the lovely NW and SE corners, though completely closed off. I wanted to punch a hole in the black wall to allow better flow to the rest of the grid. So, 4-Down went from ROTI to ROTINI to ROTISSERIE. I never could get the fill to work until I went all the way up to the 15-letter ROTISSERIE OVENS.

This crossword marks my seventh themeless puzzle in a row, far exceeding my previous streak of one.

I like most of the editorial improvements but a few of my favorite clues got the axe, including: "Method of measuring fiber intake?" for 66-Across and "One relatively close to an actor" for 21-Down.

With this crossword I broke from my tendency of opening with a triple-stack of long entries and instead took inspiration from Robyn Weintraub's 6/26/20 puzzle. This grid style offers a lot of flexibility, easing the pressure of getting three long entries to play nice. As long as 1-Across is a good entry it doesn't matter how long it is, and if you're going to borrow, do it from the best.

I did a double-take when I saw the puzzle that preceded mine. Had my wife feigned disinterest in crossword construction all these years and secretly submitted a puzzle?

As it turns out the answer is no; this Kate Hawkins is of no relation to me. I hope you enjoy the weekend's doubleheader of Hawkins puzzles anyway.

I'm pleased with this crossword's mix of marquee long entries and interesting short ones. My favorite is 12-Down, an earworm that frequently haunts me. Publishing a song in a crossword is the best way to get it out of your head, right?

JOHN: This puzzle was accepted in August 2019. During construction, it went through so many back and forth handoffs that we can't remember who was mainly responsible for what. When we saw that the NW stack lined up a vertical YOU, we bumped a square over to (hopefully) make room for a colloquial phrase to cut through the middle of the puzzle. Thank you to the editorial team for the great clue for 43-A!

JOHN: Michael usually gets the ball rolling by sending a corner. This time, it was the SE corner, though it was a little more closed off, with "condor" where GRYFFINDOR sits now. Over about three months of back and forth, which seems about average for our collabs, the grid slowly took shape. Also, I do love me some SRIRACHA.

Seeing this puzzle publish as a Saturday surprised me, not only because it was accepted as a Friday but also because some of the clues are pitched much more easily than my originals, particularly 1-Across which I had as "Splashy entrance?"

The change to ORCAS Island in 47-Across' clue brings back memories of our after hours visit to the island's only doctor to stitch up a large gash on my daughter's knee, acquired within minutes of arriving to our campsite after a lengthy ferry ride.

Aside from a rough start in the first couple of downs I'm pleased with how clean and varied the grid came out. I finished filling it in the middle and by luck of the Cruciverb gods I squeezed a bonus fashion icon into a pair of stacked answers.

ZOMBIE BANKS and PATENT TROLL have been gathering dust together in my notebook for a long time now. I was ready to give up on ever finding an entry to join them when I decided to take one last pass through a financial glossary. When I spotted UNICORN STARTUP, I knew I had found it at last. A clickbait article gifted me the FINANCIAL MYTHS revealer soon after.

The layout is more closed off than I usually like, but theme entries 14 and 11 letters long proved constricting. Still, I was able to get the grid down to 76 words to open the corners a bit and kept everything relatively clean, aside from longest abbr. I've ever put in a puzzle: ATTY GEN.

FOR THE WIN was our seed for this crossword. The greatest difficulty with themeless puzzles is finding the balance between liveliness and cleanliness, and we believe we did well, with the only major dings being SSNS and perhaps SAWII. The editorial staff made many of our clues less tricky, but hopefully solvers will still get enough of the challenge they expect from a Friday.

We submitted this in August 2017 and it was accepted in November 2017, our fifth published collaboration.

At a mini-conference last year, the first speaker of the day used the term BUZZKILL, which I connected to my battle earlier that morning with the alarm clock. By the end of her presentation, I had worked out the rest of the theme.

This puzzle is dedicated to Katie, my wife of fifteen years, whom I married in 18-A and who may never forgive me for introducing to the 49-A.

We're not hitting the stairs again today, though it may look that way at first glance. The lengthiness of the theme entries limited my options, so I settled on this grid shape which provided the most bonus fill and kept everything else clean.

The theme entries are arranged to create a narrative about a fashion mishap which is sewn up in the end with an emergency fix. Don't leave home without your mini sewing kit!

Today's puzzle is my first solo themeless puzzle after collaborating with John Guzzetta on my first three. Because we received some editorial pushback on previous portmanteaus, I worried a bit about stacking HACKTIVISM and STAYCATION in such close proximity. Will liked both, so perhaps these entries are regarded as more common.

Many of my favorite clues survived the edit, including "DC area?" for KRYPTON and "What has a lot in store for you?" for ONESTOPSHOP. "Long Division?" for AFCWEST did not make the cut however, likely because Howie has been too long out of the game.

Michael provided the bottom to get us going, I did the top, and we batted around the east and west until we both liked it. We finished the grid just before a Sept 2016 hike in North Cascades National Park. So we worked on clues while charging up and down mountains. Even though few of the clues survived, it's definitely our favorite collaboration published so far.

Patrick Berry's use of stair-step blocks in his themeless puzzles inspired this puzzle's creation. The large block count forced me to keep the word count lower than a typical early week puzzle, a constraint that challenged the balance between visual appeal and clean fill.

Since the acceptance of this puzzle I have become much more familiar with ESCALATORCLAUSEs, which have so far failed to make a difference in the ultra-competitive Seattle-area real estate market. If you're a crossword fan with a craftsman-style Everett home you'd like to sell, please let me know!

I constructed this thinking it was a hard Monday or easy Tuesday, and that was when the theme clues weren't plumber-specific, but here it is popping up on a Wednesday. Hopefully the puzzle presents enough of a midweek challenge for everyone!

Despite my employment as a librarian, this puzzle's theme did not originate from my day-to-day work. As it was not my intention to perpetuate the shushing librarian stereotype, there is no need to revoke my membership, American Library Association.

Instead, inspiration came on a drive home as my then-first grade daughter listed off all the words she knew that ended with the -SH sound. My brain sprang to action, compiling two-word phrases that contained a SHH string. Once I hit upon the revealer, which is itself a theme entry, I knew my backseat passenger had given me a winning Monday theme.

So if you're reading this, my accidental co-constructor, dinner's on me tonight. Your choice. But keep it HUSH HUSH, just between you and me.

I started constructing this puzzle on a cross-country flight to visit friends in California. If not for miscommunication between Ben and Suzanne over who was picking me up, I would have been denied the hours in an airport-adjacent Starbucks to complete it.

I'm happy with the mix of shows included and hopefully there's something here for everyone. My comfort food show is "Friends": it was the only item in "Recently Watched" from the time Netflix started streaming it in January to just a few weeks ago when I finished all ten seasons.

I can't say whether Will Shortz's cameo appearances in two of these shows played any part in this puzzle's acceptance, but if you liked this one you'll love my upcoming "Famous Ping Pong Enthusiasts" crossword.