Will Treece author page

This was my first serious attempt at a themeless puzzle, and wow, they are a different beast constructing-wise than themed puzzles. Like playing free jazz after military marches, or Calvinball after chess.

Initially, I built this puzzle around a bottom pair of TAINTED LOVE and CHAOTIC EVIL. The editing team replied, saying they liked the puzzle except for the entries I thought were the best! They said both seed entries weren't well known enough, which surprised me, but I was happy to instead include TAKE REVENGE and CROP CIRCLES (my original corny clue: "Signs of a cereal killer?") — apologies to my D&D comrades for not getting CHAOTICEVIL into the Times.

Word notes from XWord Info:

1. TEA SET was first clued in the Times in 1946 as "Tea-things," which wouldn't fly today.
2. OPER was clued as "Music drama, in Berlin" prior to the Shortz era. Since 1994 it's been clued re: the telephone button.
3. COKE was not clued in reference to the soft-drink for decades — presumably because that's too near a drug reference? COKE was "Industrial fuel" or "Carboniferous by-product" until "Pepsi rival" in 1996.
4. IOR is easily my least favorite entry here (sorry!), but imagine if it were clued like it was in 1952: "Common suffix."

Thanks to my friend Saya for writing "Economic lose-lose" for STAGFLATION, and to XWord Info and Jeff Chen's Personal Wordlist for helping make this puzzle. Using Jeff's list has greatly improved my constructing!

Also, I think I'm the first to benefit from the new payment scale, in which a constructor receives the veteran's constructing rate on their third puzzle rather than their eleventh. This is my third puzzle, and I'm lucky enough to have it published right after the change. Thank you to everyone at the Times who made this possible, and to everyone in the crossword community who has been advocating for increased constructor pay.

Actors, musicians, and politicians: when I started researching famous people who shared names, those were the trends. We have John Adams (composer and US president), George Clinton (funk legend and Jefferson's VP), Paul Simon (musician and politician), Joe Jackson (musician and baseball player), and Jack Johnson (musician and boxer). The theme came together when I found four twelve-letter actors who shared names with other famous figures: ANNE HATHAWAY, GRAHAM GREENE, MATTHEW PERRY, and STEVE MCQUEEN.

At the time I made this, the pangram seemed worth the price of some weak threes (SDS, SSS, ICK, RTE), Looking back, I'm not so sure — but hopefully solvers who enjoy pangrams appreciate it. The center-left and center-right sections have the weakest fill, and I wonder if I could have avoided that by spacing out the theme entries more. One challenge in making this puzzle was limiting proper names in the fill, since the theme entries are so dependent on them.

Some things I enjoy: I really like HITIT at 1-Across to begin the puzzle. The BURLY ASSES in the bottom right are delightful (I swear that was the best fill). I lived in Abu Dhabi for two years, and accordingly there are some words from the Middle East here: HIJABS, IRANI, EUPHRATES, and AQABA. Overall, I enjoyed making this crossword — one of the first I ever made — and hope you get a kick out of seeing two famous figures juxtaposed next to each other by virtue of their name.

When I last wrote notes for a crossword, I was completing my Master's in Teaching. I'm now teaching world history at Park Slope Collegiate, a small public school in Brooklyn. Good luck out there to all the teachers out there who make crosswords part of their daily routine!

This crossword taught me the term "sensational spelling" — as in Froot Loops, Cheez Whiz, and the bands referenced in the six theme entries. Artists that didn't make it: CORN, FISH, SALT AND PEPPER, THE MONKEYS, TIMBERLAND, IN SYNCH, and OUTCAST. I'm pleased with the musical diversity in the final draft, which features everything from classic rock to heavy metal to contemporary hip hop.

I originally clued the theme entries not by albums, but by imagining the de-sensationalized spelling as a band, e.g. "Cat that signs and sings?" for DEAF LEOPARD. It was a decent impulse, but the puzzle coheres better after Will Shortz's editing, which instead imagines an overzealous copy editor. He also found a common element in the bands: they all had a number ONE album. It's a testament to his editing skills that he can make a theme work in ways that the constructor never imagined.

Notes from a novice constructor: six theme entries constrained this grid's possibilities, and though I was happy to focus on theme and fill, my next challenge is to write a puzzle with some high-scoring Scrabble letters. I was happy to slot in DARFUR, which I believe is my only non-theme debut word. I was a little sad to lose "How bros shouldn't zap" as my clue for TASE, but the meme reference was probably too internet-based in a puzzle already driven by pop culture.

I'm delighted to be published in the Times! I took up crossword construction for fun this summer — an adolescent viewing of the documentary Wordplay lay dormant in my psyche until then. Currently, I'm getting my Master's in Teaching (high school history), and spend most of my time writing lesson plans rather than crosswords. Honestly, I'm no expert solver; I often google on Tuesdays, and I sympathize with the strugglers rather than the speed-solvers.

Having my first NYT submission published makes me feel like a yokel invited to the king's palace, but the crossword community does a good job of making you feel welcome. Thanks to the Westport Library Crossword Puzzle Tournament for test-driving this puzzle last weekend!