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This themeless dates back to March 2016. I started in the upper left with the Scrabbly NOXZEMA/CINEMAX crossing, though my favorite corner is the lower right. Even though the short crossings aren't as smooth, I like the trio of animal entries (ROAD HOG, BEAR HUG, and CAT POSE). SCHMUCK is a bit edgy for my current taste, but I'll always have a soft spot for Yiddish and other words that relate to Jewish culture. I debuted HAMANTASCHEN in a Newsday Saturday Stumper a few years ago, and lately, I've been trying to work RUGELACH into a themeless grid.

In other news, I was recently named editor of the Universal Crossword and Universal Sunday Crossword! The former appears daily in the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and numerous other domestic and international newspapers. If you're looking for a cooldown after solving my Saturday puzzle, you won't want to miss today's offering from the amazing Zhouqin Burnikel (available after midnight Central Time).

– puzzle by David Steinberg

This puzzle is a nice example of the benefits of having thoughtful soundboards for theme ideas — my original concept focused on only soccer, and I toyed with two extra thematic layers: a RED card rebus replacing the square where the player was "ejected," as in HO[RED]SS ROMANTICS (with PELE getting the red card), and "sidelining" the ejected players, their entries only appearing along the puzzle's rim.

The current iteration is both more varied (lots of different sports and players, rather than one; including the reasons for ejection as a bonus) and compressed (trimming my kooky bells and whistles so the ejection gimmick stands out). It's the product of lots of back and forth with Joel, and crossword greats like Brendan Emmett Quigley, Andy Kravis, and more. All of which is to say that having people like that in my life makes the puzzles I construct better — and is a helpful reminder to make myself available for that kind of theme soundboarding, and more. Please check out the Crossword Collaboration group — its focus on getting more underrepresented groups published is written up here — and feel free to reach out!

I also thought the edits on this puzzle were helpful from Will + team, pithier but keeping the (to me interesting or under-referenced) information in my clues for EMILE, MALCOLM X, MALI, COGNATE, CAJUN, and (I can't believe this stayed!) MARIE. Hope y'all enjoy the puzzle!

– puzzle by Natan Last

It's a huge hono(u)r to be making my NYT debut. To think that people will be solving my puzzle makes me quite giddy.

I was born in Yorkshire, England and live in London. I'm a marketer by day, cryptic puzzle constructor by night. My puzzles appear under the pseudonym Gila in The Independent and I've contributed thematic puzzles for the Inquisitor and Enigmatic Variations series.

I started solving — and became obsessed with — US puzzles in early 2018. They're every bit as good as cryptics; often more so in terms of gridwork skills. Having happily spent hours creating grids for puzzles themed on, among other things, Homer Simpson and Seinfeld mirroring UK politics, I couldn't resist the urge to have a go. This was the second puzzle I sent, and the first reply I got from Will.

It's admittedly a simple idea, but the team liked the theme entries and bonus fill. UK puzzles generally stick to the dictionaries, so having access to a broader wordlist of slang, proper nouns, etc. was fun, and is one of the main attractions of US puzzles.

8 months on, I'm mostly pleased with the grid as an early offering from someone with limited experience of solving or constructing US puzzles. Casting a more critical eye post-publication, I think I'd prefer a neater lower stack to avoid ÁVILA and, moreover, NRA, which I've come to see can be (understandably) divisive. More happily, I've spotted — and only now, I promise — that the first 3 down entries could be seen as a subliminal message for the editors!

Clue-wise, it's a challenge moving out of cryptic mode, even when pitching at Monday level. Some clues (e.g. referencing ‘noodle dishes' for BRAINFOODS) were duly edited, and others neatened/improved. I'm hoping I can eventually get my hands on some later-week grids and let loose a bit more!

Thanks for having me and I hope you enjoy.

– puzzle by Ali Gascoigne

The theme of this puzzle was largely hashed out over dinner at Red Robin. The most important decision was which pairs of words to include. We wanted the Spanish to be fair and recognizable to a large portion of the solving population. Luckily, only one of us speaks Spanish. Therefore, we leveraged the perspective of the non-Spanish speaker to help make that determination.

Of course, all pairs of widely-recognizable English and Spanish words that start with the same letter don't necessarily work in this type of crossword puzzle. This is especially true with 16 crossing theme entries totaling 68 of the 186 white squares.

Some of the other combinations with well-known Spanish words that didn't make the cut were: BATHROOM/BAÑO, PLEASE/POR FAVOR, and RIVER/RÍO. Ultimately, the requirements of grid symmetry and theme interlock (e.g., the shared "O" between FUEGO and HELLO) dictated which themers worked the best. We tried to get DAY/DÍA to fit in the upper-left corner so we could start with DAY and end with NIGHT, but the resulting fill options weren't good enough. Instead, we went with SUN/SOL.

We're happy to see almost all of our clues kept as-is or only slightly modified. Queena has been trying to get a "The Baby-Sitters Club" reference into one of her published crossword puzzles for a long time, so we were especially pleased to see that come to pass.

One final trivia question. Four of the eight semantically-paired Spanish words have appeared in the NYT crossword puzzle more often than their English equivalents. Which words are they? To find the answer, click on "Analyze this puzzle" at the bottom of the page.

– puzzle by Queena Mewers and Alex Eaton-Salners

I started this puzzle simply thinking about breaking the constraints of the 15x15 grid and looking for expressions that would motivate doing that. OUTSIDE THE BOX was an obvious possibility, but I couldn't figure out where to take it. OVER THE EDGE was also obvious, and I considered using expressions with OVER dangling over the edge. It was simple enough finding possibilities ending in OVER that don't carry the meaning of OVER — e.g., FOUR-LEAF CLOVER — but the same isn't true for expressions that start with OVER. So I dropped the idea and let it simmer in the background. Then, one day during my walk to the gym, when I was mulling over OVER THE EDGE, I had an aha moment — actually more like a forehead-slapping duh moment: I could use GOES OVER THE EDGE to motivate words and expressions that begin or end with GO hanging over the edge.

Of course, there isn't necessarily a direct route from an idea to seeing one's puzzle in print. My first submission included GOES OVER THE EDGE as the reveal, which I liked, because it has 15 letters and captures the idea that there is more than one GO over the edge. But Will saw it differently and thought GO OVER THE EDGE would be "much more elegant." Although I didn't fully agree, I wasn't in a position to argue with "much more elegant," so I completely redid the puzzle, resubmitted it, tweaked it a bit more, and finally hit the mark.

I hope the puzzle doesn't send anyone over any edges, other than ones in the 15 x 15 grid.

– puzzle by Morton J. Mendelson

I started this one by playing with a number of options at 32-Across and ended up with SCULPTED ABS working out best, and only then after running through a number of more normal options for 33-Down and ending up with the unusual C SCALE. I don't love this answer as a musician because the scale itself is ambiguous (Major? Minor? Mixolydian?), but it helped pull together the middle. I originally had BAYONETTED for 29-Across before finding that it was more commonly spelled with one T in American English, so I ended up switching to BAYONETING and redoing the NE corner. Unfortunately, there weren't as many stellar fill options here, so I threw in TEA EGG for some interest. I'm sure the critics will love it.

Overall the editing team did a good job tempering my clues, some of which I'll admit were a bit too difficult. I was sad to see a couple of my favorite clues go, including "One-man band?" for ID BRACELET, and "Public display of confection" for DESSERT CASE, but I'm glad they kept my unassuming clue for MEN. Hope you enjoy!

– puzzle by Ryan McCarty

My initial concept with "OUT OF ORDER SIGNS" as the central reveal was for common signage text entries consisting of two words, but with the words reversed to make a totally different meaning. I.e. WAY WRONG (Clued: Totally not right) for the out-of-order WRONG WAY sign; or WANTED HELP (Clued: Needed assistance) for the out-of-order HELP WANTED sign. It was really limiting trying to find strong entries that would work both ways.

At some point a asked Jeff if he would look at a couple of puzzles I was playing around with and give me an opinion on whether I was wasting my time or not. He liked the OUT OF ORDER SIGNS concept but right away saw the potential in an anagrammed theme for the out-of-order connection.

Once Jeff "signed on" ;-) , a lot of fun anagramming options sprang up! I was surprised at how many anagrams can be made from words like "speed limit"! We also had a discussion about whether the entries should be the out-of-order signage text or the anagrammed clues. My recollection is that we thought it would be less confusing for solvers if the entries were clean, even though the central revealer seemed to be addressing the entries, and not the clues!

Not being a super savvy anagrammer, I though we should include an optional clue addition that would help solvers place where the out-of-order clue signage would be found. I.e. For SPEED LIMIT we submitted the clue "TEPID SLIME along an interstate". Will opted for the more difficult version without the locator clueing. He also revised our anagrams to be less humorously offbeat. Hmm…

This puzzle has a lot of Jeff Chen's constructing expertise rolled up in it from grid layout to entries. I was happy to be on the Chen team once again!

– puzzle by John E. Bennett and Jeff Chen

This is the first puzzle I've constructed and I'm thrilled to be making my NYT debut. The seed entry for this puzzle was 33-Across CRAZY RICH ASIANS, followed by 1-Across CATFISHES, a shoutout to Henry Joost and Supermarché, who made Catfish. I wanted to clue 41-Across ALL-PROS as "Like Newton and Watt," but WATT was already in the grid and I couldn't figure out how to replace it.

Fill-wise, I'm least happy with WOODMEN, T-NUTS, and T-SLOT, particularly since they sit so close together in the grid. My favorites are the multi-word answers OOPS SORRY, WIN AT LIFE, and SLEEP EASY.

I'm grateful to Erik Agard for inspiring me to start constructing and for being a fantastic mentor. He did warn me about the dicey black square configuration that almost trisects the grid, exactly the feedback I got from the editors. A near deal-breaker — thank you eds. for letting it slide!

I've been a crossword enthusiast for about ten years. Between solving puzzles, I spend my time making jewelry and magnetic objects, teaching yoga, and bothering my dog. I hope to keep the puzzles coming!

– puzzle by Wyna Liu

Andrew: This puzzle started with the SE stack, as I had been trying forever to get PIXIECUT into a puzzle (my sister proudly donned this style for a while). When FLEXTIME and DOMINATRIX fell into place, I knew I was cooking. Then I hit PANSEXUAL (more and more I'm trying to incorporate queer-themed language into my themelesses to expose solvers to aspects and identities within the queer community) and was a happy man. While I'm bummed that COME OUT was not clued as I had hoped, I am so happy by the sparkle that John brought to the left side—a true collaborative effort.

John: It was great fun trying to fill the left half of this puzzle, working to build on the lively right half that Andrew presented to me. I'm excited to have our third collaboration appear in the Times. I'm also excited to be working with Andrew on the third edition of Boswords, the summer crossword tournament that we co-direct in Boston (with the help of an amazing group of constructors and volunteers!) The date is set for Sunday July 28 and you can get more info at www.boswords.org. Hope to see you there!

– puzzle by Andrew Kingsley and John Lieb

It's so nice to be back on glossy newsprint! Haven't had a Sunday puzzle for 9 years. Last one was Kevan Choset and my Mad Magazine Fold-In puzzle in 2010!

This one has been cooking for a number of years. I originally submitted it five years ago and Will took issue with a couple of entries. I had OTTO THE ORANGE (Syracuse mascot) for Sports, and BLUE DIAMONDS (rare South African gemstones) for Geography. He thought both of those were too obscure. I agree. And so, years later I pulled out the puzzle again and did a complete re-grid — started at square one. I think it works much better now and I'm proud of the theme intersections! So, this puzzle was five years in the making!

And the new constructor blurbs are so nice! I'm grateful for the Times for mentioning my show in New York City, The Enigmatist. If you're coming through, please come check it out! It's an "immersive evening of puzzles, cryptography and illusions." More info here.

And the trailer has quite a few hidden puzzles in it as well. Enjoy!

– puzzle by David Kwong

ACME: Leslie Rogers was looking for a mentor and had forwarded many good ideas, and this one stood out to me.

We had a natural reveal in CAP AND GOWN, so it was a matter of hashing out details (e.g., caps should consistently come first. We needed matching 10s, etc.)

There are both metaphoric types of caps as well as physical ones (i.e., baseball vs. ice cap or hard cap) but there are only a few types of gowns, almost entirely physical (hospital, wedding.)

Leslie is a software engineer, so after we came up with initial lists, she made a program that generated every conceivable combination. New way of working for me!

Big age gap, but she learned who BILLY IDOL is, and I learned what a DATASET is. Fun and easy collaboration facilitated by the fact that we "met" online through the blogosphere but both live in San Francisco.

Happy to have played a part in her debut.

Leslie Rogers: It's a dream come true to make my debut as a New York Times crossword constructor! My mom introduced me to crosswords when I was young, and my obsession has grown in the last couple of years as I've discovered the NYT app, tournaments, and blogs. I'm a software engineer from Silicon Valley, and besides crossword puzzles, my hobbies include backpacking, scavenger hunts, trivia nights, board games, and cross country skiing with my team Aloha Nordic.

I originally met Andrea online when she posted a message that she was open to mentoring and I took her up on her offer. Coincidentally, it turned out that we live right by each other, which made collaboration easier! I sent her several theme ideas, and she picked CAP AND GOWN as having the most potential. We brainstormed dozens of caps and gown and I wrote a short script to print out all the combinations and filter them by entry length to help us choose. NIGHT-NIGHT came quickly, WHITE WEDDING was next after Andrea convinced me that Billy Idol is crossworthy, and after another round of brainstorming we finally came up with MUSHROOM BALL to round out the set. I hope you enjoy the solve!

– puzzle by Leslie Rogers and Andrea Carla Michaels

For me, the best crosswords are those with the most entertaining theme answers, involving the most ridiculous images, the most absurd incongruities. Mechanical consistency, such as might result from a simple computer algorithm, doesn't interest me. I want a puzzle obviously created by a human being, preferably one with a sense of humor.

The more answers a theme generates, the more a constructor has to work with. In this puzzle, for instance, COB SALAD (Side dish with extreme roughage?) would also fit the theme, as would the similarly salad-related BIB LETTUCE (Consequence of infant salad consumption?), the bilingual HONEST ABBE (Trustworthy French cleric?), the grim RUSSIAN RUBBLE (Crimean war consequence?), the grimmer BOMB BAY DUCK (Weaponized waterfowl?) — and no doubt there are others. I chose what seemed to me the best symmetrically fitting possibilities consistent with my groan-worthy pun revealer, and I'm delighted that the Times has published the result.

If you want more such puzzles, try my website, where I post a new one every Saturday.

– puzzle by David Alfred Bywaters

Oof, this was a doozy to construct. There are so few themer options (beyond the flexibility that Bond and "Men in Black" provide), leading to me needing to use 14-letter CHARACTER ACTOR instead of much friendlier CHARACTER ACTORS. Combined with my desire to use HUGO WEAVING (for whom I had no matching 11) meant I could not use a 14x16 grid, which forced the rectangles in the corners. It did give me the chance to make the grid pretty open, and I like how it's different from what's typically seen (even if that is because it's ugly and what's typically seen is not ugly :P).

I'm thrilled to debut THE BEAN today. I've only been to Chicago once, but while there I developed a weird fascination with THE BEAN. It's become quite a real part of my personality — many of my friends won't visit Chicago without sending me a selfie with THE BEAN. I'll always look back upon this puzzle as my tribute to it.

– puzzle by Sam Trabucco

Happy Friday everyone!

The seeds for this puzzle were BAHAMA MAMA, PROM DRESS, RED DRAGON, and ADDED SUGAR. My original submission had DEFLEA at the bottom left corner, but I wasn't entirely sure Will would approve. As a backup, I included an alternative bottom left corner featuring RIFLES instead of DEFLEA, which you see today. Even though I'm a huge horror fan, RED DRAGON was my second favorite entry; my first was NEAR MISSES. I've gotten a few rejections in the past from Will telling me my puzzle was a "near miss," so once I saw it pop up in Crossfire by pure chance, I knew I had to keep it. I figured it would give submitters a good laugh to see a "near miss" be approved.

On that note, to anyone still trying to get their foot in the door, here's how I improved my odds for an acceptance (especially themeless puzzles); an enormous thanks to Will and the team!

1. Get rid of any crosswordese (delete these from your wordlists and default puzzle program wordlists!).
2. Make sure the black square pattern doesn't cut off the flow/connections of the answer spaces too much (Ex: Don't have only one answer square connect two major puzzle areas.)

The hardest thing in my opinion for a themeless is featuring enough interesting long fill. Every editor has a different taste. As a scientist, I love LACTIC ACID or MARINE BIOME as answers, but they were rejected in past submissions and specifically pointed out. Additionally, long fill stacks or an area of words will just sound and look right to you. Trust your gut.

Just keep submitting and hope for the best!

– puzzle by Daniel Nierenberg

I came up with this idea in late 2015, being inspired by two prior Tuesdays: May 1, 2007, and November 16, 2010. It struck me that they both had a "pinwheel" pattern of long answers that did not have anything to do with theme, just to help set up the actual themers, and that they fit the simple "word that comes before/after" theme type. JOINT then struck me as both a description of the 90-degree turn and something with a more definite list of potential themers, and so I set to work on it.

I considered JOINT RESOLUTION in the center, but I wasn't sure how familiar it would be, nor could I think of any meaningful reason for RESOLUTION other than that it would make the revealer 15 letters long. It hit me immediately after trying the revealer in its current form that it would allow for two more themers. As I went along filling and cluing it, I was afraid that not all the joints being hinge joints, like their arrangement seemed to indicate, would be cause for rejection. There is always some such kind of risk that you take whenever you submit a puzzle, though, so I kept going and was thrilled when Will accepted it last May 18.

Thank you, solvers, for taking the time to try this. A puzzle is never truly happy until it is solved by you :-)

P.S. I must give a big shout-out to Tim Croce, who is a very good friend of mine... and, as of February 16, a dad!

– puzzle by Alex Vratsanos

The theme entries started with JASMINE AND JEANS. I noted this would make a 15-letter entry with a cute clue (BLUE JAYS) that could be paralleled with BLACK EYES, HONEY BEES, HIGH SEAS, and GREEN PEAS. Coming up with 4 15-letter entries and a 9-letter entry for the middle was a lot for a daily puzzle, but I didn't want to give any of them up and I thought the challenge to craft a 72 word grid that could hold them all would be something I wanted to try. To make it even harder for myself I kept the parts of each pairing in alphabetical order.

Designing the theme entries this way probably caused me to have a few more abbreviations than I would have liked, which may displease some solvers. I think the trade-off for an abundance of long theme entries was worth it in this puzzle. I know sometimes it's not, and a constructor should knock out the weakest theme entry for the sake of the rest of the grid; but I managed to get a real tight theme and the personal constructing pleasure of crafting an interlock that held so many long answers.

RESAND was also an entry I didn't particularly like - it's not a word most, if any, solvers would use or hear. I spent a long time trying to get rid of it. However, when I thought of the clue "Smooth over" I thought that would compensate for the not so great "re" word. RSVPED and NBATEAM, with their consecutive consonants both got me out of trouble in the grid. I also came up with the original UN VOTE to help me complete the fill.

This was a fun crossword constructing exercise for me. I hope it's also an "aha moment" for solvers when the theme answers are discovered.

– puzzle by Randolph Ross