Spencer Leach author page

SPENCER: This puzzle came together relatively fast. I met Quiara a while back on the Crosscord Discord server, and this is our first collaborative effort together. I think it turned out pretty well! Rather than email different grid designs back and forth, we constructed the puzzle in a single sitting via a discord call. This live collaboration method allowed us to work around some of the pitfalls that collab puzzles can often fall into — those being that the grid is overly segmented to allow different constructors to work on different sections or that one constructor fills the majority of the grid while another constructor gets small outer sections that are already constrained.

In the end, I really love how the grid turned out. I know scrabbly grids (ones that use lots of high-point scrabble letters like J Q X Z) aren't everyone's cup of tea since they tend to bog down the fill, but I love them, especially when the rare letter is at the nexus of two punchy words like the Q is in our grid. The grid ended up being a pangram — the first one of 2023, in fact!

QUIARA: How exciting to be back in the NYTXW, and on my favorite day, no less. I feel most at home when making a hard themeless loaded with exotic letters, so thankfully, Spencer was picking up what I was putting down on this collaboration. We made this grid a little under a year ago — I think it was fast-tracked to run in June on account of how much they liked the PRIDE FLAGS clue — and as such, I have a pretty clear memory of our process on making this one.

We came upon this grid shape pretty quickly, but it took us a little longer to get a fun pair of stacks. Eventually, we cut out a lot of possibilities by planting an ING at the bottom of the vertical spanner here, which gave us lots of options — once we saw we could get BBQ PORK BUNS and QUIT DAYDREAMING to cross, though, it was off to the races.

Some miscellanea here:

- Since that spanner crossing that top stack has 20 of the 26 letters in it, we decided to aim for the pangram here. AJAX at 25-Across is the kind of entry that usually reads as fishing for a pangram, but in this case I really do think that gave us the best fill, and they were completely unnecessary to hit the pangram with JUDAS-crossing-JETE and FROST/NIXON elsewhere in the grid.

- WOZ is apparently a debut entry here, which I didn't expect to be the case, him being co-founder of the most valuable company in the world and all that. How often do you see a 3-letter word debut in the NYT these days? (Incidentally, shout-out to my pal Nick Wozniak, game developer of Shovel Knight fame, who is the reason I even put WOZ on my wordlist in the first place.)

- Speaking of WOZ, he was originally clued as [Jobs initiative backer, familiarly?] - a tricky clue that had its difficulty ironed out in editing, presumably because they prefer proper names to be clued more straightforwardly. Similarly, KHLOE was clued as [Rob's biggest little sis, in tabloid land], with the unstated assumption that we are all aware of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, whether we want to be or not.

- There were a bunch of other changes here, none of which are particularly tragic. Cluing YOGA PANTS as [They're not just for posers anymore!], for instance. Or cluing OBAMA as the [Central figure in 2014's "Tansuitgate"]. Or cluing BREAKDANCE in reference to the late great Adolfo "Shabba Doo" Quinones, star of the Breakin' movies. (And contemporary of Toni Basil - yes, that Toni Basil - with whom he invented the pop-and-lock. Also, this is a trivia chestnut at this point, but did you know Toni Basil choreographed David Byrne's dancing in the video for "Once in a Lifetime" ?)

- One extremely specific reference of mine that did make the final cut? Cluing Malik YOBA in reference to his (rather minor) role on "God Friended Me," a very sweet show that I genuinely like despite its stupid title, and not just because its cast is an armada of dreamboats. (Seriously, why is Brandon Micheal Hall so good looking? It's unfair.)

- See if you can guess our original clue for FROST/NIXON! Hint 1: it was *hilarious.* (Hint 2: It rhymed with "picnic.")

This puzzle's grid was inspired by a grid from the incomparable Robyn Weintraub, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at this year's ACPT. I flipped the "stair stack" shapes on either side to create a similar grid but with a smaller central stack and beefier corners. There are fewer sparkly entries than I usually like to pack into my themeless puzzles nowadays (looking at you IMPRISONED and REJOINS) but I believe the trade-offs made for a buttery-smooth solving experience.

A couple of lesser-known proper nouns did end up in the puzzle, but BETTY gets a pass for being a fantastic Taylor Swift song, and though DENIECE Williams may not be as well-known as T-swizzle, four Grammys is hardly underground.

I also want to give a huge shout-out to the crossword discord server. Being able to ask construction questions to a group of seasoned NYT contributors has been invaluable to my crosswording journey.