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Kristian House, of Oneonta, N.Y., is a former math teacher who now writes math content for textbooks and online platforms. He started constructing crosswords after watching the 2006 documentary "Wordplay." For this puzzle the first theme answer he thought of eventually became the puzzle's title instead.

This is Kristian's 18^th crossword for The Times, and his first Sunday.

– puzzle by Kristian House

Peter Gordon, of Great Neck, N.Y., is a professional puzzlemaker and editor. He oversees the puzzle-and-game program at Sterling Publishing. He also creates a challenging weekly online crossword ("Fireball"), available by subscription.

This is Peter's 116^th puzzle for The Times, including the very first crossword (a Sunday) under my editorship in 1993.

– puzzle by Peter Gordon

Randolph Ross, of New York City, is a retired principal for high schools in Queens, Great Neck and Plainview, N.Y. Crosswords helped him get one of his jobs. He says his final interview with the Great Neck Board of Education was devoted mainly to crossword constructing rather than how to run a school. Having had one of his puzzles published in The Times shortly before "was good timing and made for a happy interview."

This is Randy's 50^th Sunday crossword for the paper and his 113^th Times puzzle overall.

– puzzle by Randolph Ross

Frank Longo, of Hoboken, N.J., is a professional puzzlemaker and editor. He creates the weekly "Premier Crossword" for King Features Syndicate, as well as the Sunday "Spelling Bee" for [the Sunday New York Times] magazine. He is the author of more than 150 books of Sudoku puzzles.

Today's crossword is unthemed, which means the focus is on vocabulary that is as lively and colorful as possible, with no other constraint. To construct it, Frank started with the central Across stack, then built outward. The finished puzzle has 122 answers, the lowest number ever for a Sunday Times crossword.

– puzzle by Frank Longo