Michael Wiesenberg author page

MICHAEL:

The idea for the puzzle first came to me in 2007. I tried unsuccessfully to fit seven entries that had all the colors of the rainbow, plus RAINBOW as the reveal. I looked at the puzzle from time to time, but couldn't manage to get eight entries into one puzzle. I concluded it couldn't be done, but then I was trying to fit all entries horizontally. I revisited the idea and came up with something I could make work by making two of the entries vertical.

I had had four unthemed puzzles published in the NYT by this time, but, although I've had many themed puzzles published, none in the NYT. My efforts were an inconsistent mix of easy and difficult entries and clues.

I contacted Andrea Carla Michaels because I felt I needed help with devising an early-week puzzle from someone who has a lot of experience with them. In a lengthy exchange (70) of emails, we honed the puzzle till we got something we felt worth submitting. We considered ROYGBIV as the reveal ("Mnemonic for remembering a list of seven of which the starred entries all contain elements") but went back to RAINBOW. For ?APPY, we went back and forth with HAPPY, NAPPY, SAPPY, YAPPY, and settled on HAPPY as the best word for early week.

FWIW, we think the final version contains a minimum of difficult entries.

ACME:

Was in awe that Michael could get eight theme entries into a Monday! (I warned him that regardless of the difficulty WE thought this was, it would be slotted for a Monday!) That necessitated many iterations, to get the fill "simple." How nice at the end of all this to see a rainbow!

A few notes:

• When I construct a themed puzzle, I start with four or five, sometimes six, theme entries and then find a grid into which to fit them. When I construct an unthemed puzzle, I start with a grid and fill that.
• I like to challenge myself with a difficult-to-fill grid, so I choose a grid with a low word count and as few blocks as I can manage (66 and 34 here). I also use as few three-letter words as I can. (The present puzzle has eight.)
• I use as many long entries as I can, which lowers both the word and block counts.
• For the fill, I like to use as many entries as I can that have not appeared in puzzles before — I maintain a list that I constantly update when I hear new, unusual, or otherwise fresh words and phrases. As of the beginning of March I had debuted 25 words in three previous NYT puzzles. My list includes, for example, VIDEO ARCADE GAME and LAND SPEED RECORD, which haven't yet appeared in any major crossword puzzle.
• None of the four 13-letter words in this puzzle has appeared previously in a Times puzzle, in the Shortz era. A few of the shorter entries are also new. I also remove from my list short, obscure words like AEI, ANSA, ARON, AROO, DESE, GSN, MRC, MWF, RANA, RATEL, and SATO.
• In my puzzles I keep to a minimum words that end in -S, -TION, -TIONS, verb forms that add -ER but do not otherwise rate a discrete dictionary entry, and other bland constructs.

I first constructed crossword puzzles in the late 1960s, using pencil and graph paper. To cut down on erasing, I set portions of grids with letter cubes — dice with letters on all six sides. I sold several puzzles to Master and Quality puzzle magazines. Considering the time it took I was earning about 50 cents an hour. I gave up until the 2000s, when I discovered Crossword Compiler.

I have a varied publication history:

• For several months I constructed the daily crossword puzzle in Metro, Canada's largest independent newspaper.
• I have a collection at Puzzazz, "Crosswords, Eh?," Canadian-themed puzzles — Canadian spelling and usage in entries and clues.
• I did 20 puzzles for "The Everything Crossword Challenge Book."
• For four years I constructed a monthly poker-themed puzzle for Poker Player Newspaper.
• For five years I did a monthly crossword for PokerPages.com.
• For two years I was the crossword constructor for Advance for Nurses and for three for LA Direct.
• For five years I contributed several crosswords a month to the online portal Puzzle Planet.

I have also been a columnist for Card Player magazine, the best-known poker publication and online poker portal, since its inception in 1988. I have written seven books on computers and on gambling, most of which can be found on Amazon.

As for this puzzle, I've used this grid before. I chose it again because it's particularly hard to fill cleanly and I like a challenge. I maintain a list of fresh words, phrases, and expressions that I hear in conversation and on TV and that I see in my reading, entries that I think may not have previously appeared in mainstream puzzles. I try to fill my grids with as many of these I can. While I am using Crossword Compiler to fill the grid, as words suggested by the app pop into place that I feel are less than sparkly, I lower their scores such that they are less likely to appear again or even that they will never appear in my puzzles. I constructed six variations of this puzzle before I felt it was good enough to submit.