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I'm pleased to have my second puzzle in the New York Times. It's being published just two months after acceptance, leapfrogging another puzzle of mine that's in the queue.

This theme came together fairly easily. I don't even remember which theme entry came to me first, because I thought of all four at about the same time, and I couldn't think of any good options beyond the four. It was good I had some leeway on phrasing and verbs, which allowed me to equalize the lengths of the phrases.

I was surprised when Will said he would publish this on Thursday. I expected this to be earlier in the week. Thanks to the editing team for their work in adding more deviousness to my clues.

I wrote this puzzle last November, during a different time, when we took going to work for granted. A lot has changed. I'm now in my third month of working from home. My thoughts go out to all who have been working on the front lines, to those whose jobs have gone away, and to those who are just starting back to in-person work as businesses are opening again.

– puzzle by Barbara Lin

This is my first Monday puzzle, and it marks a personal milestone for me as a constructor: I have now made a NY Times puzzle for every day of the week. I hope you enjoy it.

While you're here, I'd like to share some ways the crossword community is supporting the essential work of tackling racism by giving their time and talent: Erik Agard (who wrote last Monday's excellent puzzle) and Paolo Pasco are both offering unpublished puzzles in return for donations to antiracist/Black Lives Matter-relevant causes. I hope some of you will channel your appreciation for their work into contributing. And (to echo Erik's note from last week) the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory on Facebook offers resources and mentorship for constructors from underrepresented groups.

– puzzle by Kyle Dolan

AMANDA: Wow, what a blast from the past! This was the first puzzle that I ever conceived of and worked on constructing. I knew I wanted to make an Avengers-themed puzzle, and I'd just tricked Ross into, I mean, asked Ross to take me under his wing and show me the ropes of the crossworld. My original idea for a revealer was, to put it generously, embarrassing (what a newb), but in his usual fashion, Ross was able to offer up the brilliant idea for a revealer that you see here.

Fictional superheroes are cool, but to all the real-life superheroes who are out fighting for justice right now... this one's for you. And if you're looking for more puzzles to solve, I post puzzles daily on my website and on Twitter (@amandarafkin). Happy solving, take good care of yourself and each other, and keep fighting the good fight.

ROSS: I'm donating my payment for this puzzle to Violence in Boston, Inc.

If you're looking to get into crossword constructing, and especially if you identify as non-male, LGBTQ+, or as a person of color, I'd be thrilled to offer whatever assistance I can to help you get your puzzles published. Contact me via Instagram (@rosstrudeau), Twitter (@trudeauross), or rosswordpuzzles.com.

– puzzle by Amanda Rafkin and Ross Trudeau

The inspiration for this puzzle was noticing that although SHOGI has been in the NYT crossword multiple times, XIANGQI had yet to appear, despite — or perhaps, because of — its strikingly unusual arrangement of letters. I probably wouldn't be much better at it than I am at chess, but I still think it looks pretty cool in the puzzle. [Side note: I'm more of a Scrabble guy, myself, but when it comes to abstract strategy games, the GIPF Project games are awesome.]

Once I had built the two intersecting stacks of sevens in the lower-left corner, I considered my possibilities for branching out, and when I found the FAST TRACK / TOM SWIFTY combination, I knew I was onto something. I remember trying to build the upper-left corner and coming up with something that was clean enough but just felt lackluster to me, especially in comparison to the lower-left. Eventually, I tried moving a black square and changed WWII to SAW II, which wasn't my favorite answer, but along with ORGS, it allowed for what you see here, which feels like a pretty lively way to kick off the puzzle.

I decided maintaining this level of liveliness in the rest of the puzzle would be well worth a few compromises in shorter fill. I think the upper-right corner especially exemplifies this, with APTS and AGUE allowing for ODD DUCK (next to TANAGER), and the flashy crossing of XEROPHYTE and X-FACTOR. I think this one turned out pretty well, and I particularly like how it has a nice mix of multi-word phrases and interesting one-word entries.

My favorites clues that survived the edit are those for 63-Across, 1-Down, 5-Down, 7-Down, and 12-Down. My clue for TOM SWIFTY was ["I'll never catch Moby Dick!" Captain Ahab wailed, e.g.], which I thought was fun, though I can certainly see why a more straightforward clue was used instead. I guess the puzzle's probably difficult enough as it is, and I hope it provides an enjoyable challenge for you this weekend!

– puzzle by Trenton Charlson

I've been collecting anagrams since I was a little kid. When I taught math, I loved and was amazed that TWELVE PLUS ONE anagrammed into ELEVEN PLUS TWO. When I came across FORTY-FIVE anagramming into OVER FIFTY, I started looking for other math anagram pairs. I couldn't find or create any other math ones, but in my research and imagination, I came up with a set of not so well-known related pairs that I could fit into a sentence or two and could serve as a Sunday theme. My favorites in this puzzle are CONTAMINATED changing into NO ADMITTANCE, and A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM changing into WHAT AM I A MIND READER.

I loved talking to the late and missed Merl Reagle, who was my crossword constructing role model and an anagrammer extraordinaire. His fun with anagrams was infectious. When anyone met Merl for the first time, he would make up an anagram of your name. I was RANDY ROSS = SOS! RAN DRY!

I've done a few Anagram themed puzzles. "Travel Arrangements" (ALGERIA REGALIA, LIBYA BIALY, et al.) and "Name Change" (NUDIST HOFFMAN, WARDEN WYETH) "Rearranging the Furniture" (CHEST OF DRAWERS = CHEST OF REWARDS, OFFICE DESK = OFFICE KEDS et al.) I have found anagrams are a favorite among word puzzlers. So when I find a new one that's particularly apt, it makes me happy and goes in my collection.

I hope the solve went well for everyone. The crossing words were particularly important to figuring out the long theme entries. I also hope there were a lot of "aha" moments when the five pairs of anagrams were deduced.

– puzzle by Randolph Ross

This puzzle has a few more open squares (72) than a typical 78-word grid, primarily due to the spacing of the four GRAY AREAS. Each of them abuts only a single diagonally adjacent black block. I felt that the gray coloring would stand out better if it were surrounded by as much white space as possible.

Since the theme isn't contained in the puzzle's longest answers, there's a lot more length 7+ bonus material than a typical Tuesday. I'm quite happy with all of it. There are a few clunkers in the 6 and under range, but I think they're reasonable trade-offs for all the fun stuff they enabled.

I hope solvers appreciate the progression of square INCH, square FOOT, square YARD, and square MILE. It's a pretty tight set.

Wow, I just realized that I was spelling GRAY as GREY in these notes [hastily goes back to fix the first paragraph]. Even though GRAY is the preferred American spelling, to me, GREY (the preferred British spelling) just looks better (and is my natural inclination). I blame reading too many books by English authors in my formative years. I recall having armour and colour corrected to armor and color in elementary school.

Finally, although some things in this world are GRAY (or GREY), others are not — like the inherent dignity and value of human life. Black lives matter.

– puzzle by Alex Eaton-Salners

This idea sat around for a long time because I couldn't come up with a revealer. I loved that BLANKET OF SNOW, SHEET OF ICE, and BED OF ROSES went together so well (bed item + OF + something in nature), but with only those three I didn't think it was a solid enough theme. Then finally I got FIELD OF DREAMS and was good to go!

I think I first tried regular crossword symmetry, which could work since the theme answer lengths are 13, 10, 10, and 13. I don't remember if I had trouble with that or just felt like playing around, but I ended up doing mirror symmetry and making the theme answers sort of visually represent BLANKET, SHEET, and BED. I really like that extra "layer". And BED is even under some black squares that sort of look like a bed! That made me smile :)

The stickler in me loves my clue for LAY: [Word often misused in place of "lie"]. I try to avoid correcting people in real life (the struggle is real), so it was fun to throw it in here. And it's particularly fitting to mention considering the theme!

– puzzle by Daniel Raymon

This was a very fun puzzle to construct; making the crosses in the traffic jam mesh was interesting. Peter Gordon's rainbow puzzle had a similar challenge, but Peter had a much tougher job, as he was dealing with a forced arrangement and more rebus squares. Elizabeth Gorski also dealt with those restrictions in her New Year's Eve 2002 puzzle and her poker-themed puzzle from 2005, among others. So my restrictions weren't too tight, but they were a fun challenge. (Also, I like the bonus of SEMI and TRUCK going across two squares, as if one SEMI TRUCK was taking up two spaces.)

I'm very happy with the result, but as usual, I think this puzzle could be improved. I could have done more with the outside themers than simple traffic-adjacent answers; maybe CAR squares winding through the grid and ending at the BOTTLENECK would be fun. Additionally, lengthening the rebus crosses to words like [CAR]OLE KING and WEATHER [VAN]E would be more fun; these crosses are clean, but the center is structurally tough to crack into. I clued the crosses easily in my submission to counter that, but it looks like they've been clued harder in the edit (no complaints, though; I love harder clues).

Hope everyone enjoys the puzzle! Also, as always, the Crossword Discord Server is open for anyone to join and chat about puzzle-solving and construction; hope to see some new people there!

– puzzle by Ricky Cruz

HARRISON: I am 8 years old and a rising third grader. I like fill-ins, frameworks, brain teasers, trivia and other puzzles. I also like creative writing, drawing, trivia, travel (14 countries, 17 states and counting), reading (mostly about history and true crime), cooking, riding my bicycle and playing with my dogs. I have been solving and constructing puzzles since I was 4.

BYRON: I tell a lot of dad jokes. A while back, sparked by a suggestion from my wife Robin, we started thinking of ways to build a dad joke theme. Harrison and I would note some decent ones here and there without too many letters, but it took a long time to hit on some unifying ideas. Having run across several "crossing" jokes, the idea of crossing the components in the grid just clicked. The first two jokes were modifications of ones from Harrison's jokebooks. The latter two we wrote ourselves to make the symmetry work.

We collaborated throughout the process. Most of the longer entries were Harrison's choices. Once we had finished all but the two isolated corners, I told him he should try to finish them off on his own. He used CrossFire with a basic word list for suggestions, but he added one word at a time, without autofill. He'd ask things like "Is HASSAN okay?" for words he didn't know, but managed to finish up in pretty short order. We did the cluing together. Thursday will mark my 10th wedding anniversary and thus the 10th anniversary of the wedding day puzzle Robin and I constructed. So now it feels like we've come full circle. Hope you all enjoy the puzzle and the day.

– puzzle by Byron and Harrison Walden

Hey, Crossworld! I'm an MD/PhD student based in St. Louis, MO, and I've been constructing crossword puzzles for some time now. Last year, I started an indie crossword site, Sid's Grids, where I post puzzles for free — please give it a look! I construct with love for the art of crosswords and for puzzle people.

The motivation for this Times puzzle's theme arose not only from recognizing that ESCAPEE phonetically describes a string of letters but also from the ability to write a nonstandard revealer clue that hints at those letters "hiding" in the theme entries. Early-week revealers rarely do this sort of double duty, so I thought this was a cool find. I initially aimed for Tuesday-level fill and clues, given the easy theme. Will thought the puzzle was clean enough for a Monday, which I take as a compliment! I'm proud to follow the early-week constructing philosophy of Joel Fagliano with this 74-word grid.

When feasible, I like to try stacking themers. There are some drawbacks: the themers arrive in pairs rather than separately, altering the theme's pacing, and stacking letters can result in unsightly crossing fill. But when it works, the advantages are apparent: it's usually possible to include juicy long Acrosses since several rows in the grid are unconstrained by theme letters, and working in Down bonuses is often easier as well since each pair of stacked themers can be treated as one long entry. After some trial and error, I found this grid pattern that enabled stellar Down fill at 3D, 18D, 22D, and 31D. With those bonuses locked in place, I filled the rest of the grid, deploying "cheater" squares as needed to keep everything clean.

I'm grateful to the editing team for tightening up the clues and finding a brilliant angle for PRAYER BOOK. Among the clues that made the cut, my favorites are the ones for OXEN, DESK PHONES, and ANKLET — I represent South Asian culture in my puzzles when possible. I'm also glad that the clues for STARR / FEB recognize Black lives and culture.

Hope you enjoy the puzzle!

– puzzle by Sid Sivakumar

I had been looking for a compelling reason to pre-print something into a crossword grid. Solvers opening up their papers, irate that someone had written on their grid already? I like tweaking the straight and narrow.

Straight and narrow ... hey, wait a minute!

I also enjoy puzzles that play with letter shapes. I wondered if there were long entries formed only out of letters that have a leftmost straight line (B, D, E, F, etc.)? Turns out there were — and not many long ones, making for a tight(ish) theme set.

Now, if I could just figure out a way to convince Will Shortz to take a chance on something like this. It's not rocket science, but any sort of special visuals in the print and/or online version can be a lot of work to get to display correctly on all computers, iPads, phones, etc.

Thankfully, Will liked the concept. "Let me get this straight …" he said.

(groan)

– puzzle by Jeff Chen

This is the first of my puzzles to run in the New York Times since the birth of my daughter. My last NYT puzzle ran on April 3, which was also her due date, but she stubbornly waited an extra week and didn't join us until April 10. I did that day's great NYT puzzle by Byron Walden in the hospital in the wee hours of that morning, awaiting her arrival, and had quite a laugh when 18-Across [Shot in the back] turned out to be EPIDURAL. Funny how crosswords mirror real life.

I'm pretty happy with this grid, especially the 6x6 corners in the NE and SW. In hindsight, I probably created a puzzle with a Monday/Tuesday theme and Thursday/Friday fill, but I'd like to think there is room for puzzles like that occasionally. GRAYLY is a bit of a clunker, but I think most of the rest of the long fill is fun.

I can't take credit for great clue at 36-Down (an improvement over what I submitted, "Non-PC types").

– puzzle by Joe Deeney

We're very happy to have our puzzle published today. We're also very grateful to the editorial team and everyone involved in getting these puzzles out. To stay positive and encouraging in this challenging time is truly an admirable feat. A big thank you to you all. We also hope you puzzlers out there are staying safe and healthy.

Some notes:

• POLICEHORSE was in the original grid but then replaced in a revision to make other parts work better. We were very sad to see it go so we're absolutely delighted it made its way back into the final grid!
• PLAYMAT is another bit of fun fill and very appropriate as our living room is dominated by a colorful one of these. The clue came to us in one of those lightning bolt moments and we're so glad they kept it and added the "?" for clarity.
• SOY: We love this clue that the editing team wrote — Impossible burgers are amazing!

If you're an aspiring constructor, do reach out to us via amandakarlxword@gmail.com to talk shop. Working with others is so refreshing and inspiring. Be well everyone!

– puzzle by Amanda Chung and Karl Ni

Another puzzle from me already? It's only been two weeks since my last one. I cranked up production last year, so I have a bunch of puzzles in the queue, but now I'm afraid you'll all get sick of me!

I really like this grid — I was very pleased with the 14 long entries, 8 of which debut today. However, all my gratuitous sex and violence got edited out of the puzzle. Wait... gratuitous sex and violence… from Robyn? Indeed!

For MOTELS, my clue was, "Where some got their kicks on Route 66?" and for FIELD MOUSE, I had "Little Bunny Foo Foo victim."

Okay, I recognize that on the respective gratuitous sex and violence meters, a double entendre from a song written in 1946 and a reference to "bopping mice on the head" from a children's ditty don't rate all that high. But on the cute meter (definitely my favorite of all the meters), I think those two were adorable, and I figured I'd share them here.

– puzzle by Robyn Weintraub

ANDERSON: When Jon and I came up with this theme idea, we started by trying to make a 15x15 grid, but eventually decided that 21x21 would work better since there's a good variety of "A to the B" phrases and it gives a lot more flexibility with grid design. We'd never attempted to make a Sunday-sized grid before, and we quickly realized how brutal the 140-word limit was: we spent probably ~30 hours filling the first draft, with many nights of screen-sharing and iterating on the fill until we were happy with it, followed by another ~20 hours to produce a revision when we were asked to swap out a theme entry. Many thanks to Will Shortz and co. for their help throughout the process!

I'm especially glad to see that the clues about criminally underappreciated artist Elaine de Kooning and Choi Woo-Shik in Parasite (an incredible film) were kept in.

Thanks to Jakob Weisblat for giving very helpful construction advice, as well as several other friends involved with the Galactic Puzzle Hunt, who test-solved and provided useful feedback. And I have to stress how much I appreciated co-constructing with Jon — having a friend to collaborate with really helped with splitting up the workload and motivating each other to make progress. Perhaps even more importantly, it let us bounce potential fill options off each other and see things from different perspectives. I certainly wouldn't have been able to make this on my own.

Hope you enjoyed the puzzle!

JON: Hi, everyone! We're excited to be making our NYT debut! Anderson and I have been writing puzzles together ever since we met in college — mostly puzzle hunt puzzles, but some crossword puzzles here and there. We hope to write more NYT crosswords in the future!

Anderson did a great job of covering the construction process, so I won't say much here. I'll reiterate that this is the first time we tried to construct a 21x21, and we were a bit surprised by how much harder it was to fill cleanly than other crosswords we've constructed in the past (the unusual arrangement of the theme entries probably didn't help).

One of our biggest gaffes was after we had almost filled the puzzle for the second time, when we realized we had included both ELM STREET and TAKE [to the] STREETS. Luckily we were able to swap out TAKE [to the] STREETS for PLAY [to the] GALLERY without too much more work, but it had us worried for a bit!

– puzzle by Jon Schneider and Anderson Wang