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TONY:

Placing the additional Js was the main challenge in making this grid, with EMAJ maybe the main concession — but that's a nice-sounding key so, I for one am OK with it!

JOAO came to mind from a musical place, as well. Andrea and I both love names, and our initial, proposed clue was [Stan's partner on the 1964 multimillion-selling "Getz/Gilberto" album]. Having seen a clue in this Friday's puzzle referencing STAN Getz and his nickname, "The Sound," I half hoped that was somehow meant to help prime solvers for this, coming Getz reference in the form of JOAO (Gilberto).

However, the revised clue [Ian : Scottish :: ___ : Portuguese] does give the solver a fairer shot at getting this unusual-looking name, not used previously in the NYT puzzle, as they do not need to know Joao Gilberto to get the answer ... still, I do hope they will go and find him and that classic record that helped popularize the Bossa Nova in the U.S.

Similarly, JOSS went from the restrictive (name) [Screenwriter/director Whedon who created "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"] to the more gettable [Kind of stick for incense].

ACME:

The seed inspiration we had was FARMER IN THE JELL ironically not realizing JELL wasn't a word!

Tony carefully worked on the grid ensuring that there were no other unchanged D in the theme answers.

Although there are a limited number of words that start with J, we had a surprisingly rich list to choose from and would prob still be generating ideas if I had not insisted we actually send something in!

– puzzle by Tony Orbach and Andrea Carla Michaels

I'm excited to make my New York Times Crossword debut and to write constructor notes on XWord Info. I started making crosswords around 18 months ago and have found this site quite useful, both in finding entries and in reading constructors' comments, so it feels cool to now contribute my own notes.

I made this puzzle around 11 months ago, and theme first theme entry was BEAARTHUR, as she seemed to be the only BEA known well enough to be included in a crossword. After searching for possibilities for the other themers of various lengths, I decided upon BMINORMASS. This, and rotational symmetry knocked out options for the other theme answers like BEEHIVESTATE or BESTILLMYHEART, but, as a music major, I couldn't waste the opportunity to include Bach.

In filling the grid, I decided not to use the letter B outside of its four theme appearances and tried to find entries which could be clued smoothly. I ran into trouble in the northeast, with the weird combination of FLC in AFLCIO, but I'm happy with how it turned out. In the northeast, the editing team replaced SISI with YETI, which is a far better and stronger piece of fill and works just as well with the crosses. Additionally, DONE/DOLES became PONE/POLES.

I'm glad to see that many of my better clues were kept while all my weaker "Baccalaureate receiver"-type clues were replaced. As a (Detroit) Tiger's fan, the only clue I miss is the one referencing LOU Whitaker, but I suppose he may not be nationally known enough for a Monday.

It feels great to have a New York Times Crossword puzzle and I hope it makes for a smooth and enjoyable solve.

– puzzle by Ellis Hay

I wish I understood how my brain works. A decade ago I saw a Photoshop contest on the theme of "scary road signs," with entries including enforcing a speed limit of the square root of 666. I haven't the foggiest idea why my brain held onto that image, or why it dragged the memory out kicking and screaming ten years later just for the sake of generating a "root of all evil" pun. Once it did, though, and because every dang thing becomes a theme in this hobby, there was no way I wasn't going to run with it.

(It wasn't until writing this blurb that I went looking for the original image, only to discover that it actually showed the square root of 677. I give up, brain.)

This represents my second attempt at the concept after the first was rejected by Will, who liked the theme but not the execution; some but not all of the theme entries in that original go-around relied on homophones, like SINE OF THE TIMES (sin[AxB]) and HALF A GOOD DAY (.5 x 12/25), which proved inconsistent. The do-over is much tighter overall with a minimum of wince-and-hide-my-eyes fill, which isn't to say that I wouldn't love to gut the SW corner another six times.

The fill went relatively quickly, although the nipping and tucking portion of the process dragged on for quite a while. You'd think I'd have learned by now to hack away at the center first, where everything crashes into everything else Michael Bay-style, but old habits die hard. And yes, I was a math major before switching to English, which is as good an explanation not only for this puzzle but for why I do this in the first place. Such is life.

– puzzle by Adam Fromm

Perhaps some will say this theme is OLD NEWS. Others may say it is AWFUL GOOD. Either is a DEFINITE POSSIBILITY. When I sent in the FINAL DRAFT of this puzzle, I thought it had REAL POTENTIAL, but likely faced EVEN ODDS for acceptance. So I was TERRIBLY PLEASED when I got the good news it would be in the New York Times. NOTHING MUCH beats that feeling. I'm FAR CLOSER to where I'd like to be as a constructor thanks to the expert guidance of Will and his team. This is BITTERSWEET for me since my father Ron passed late last year before he was able to see my puzzles published in the Times. GOOD GRIEF was he a SERIOUSLY FUNNY guy.

I like the challenge of constructing Monday puzzles because it's HARDLY EASY to make them clean, interesting, and accessible to new solvers. ONCE AGAIN, it's a privilege to have the chance to give you a moment or two of entertainment as you start your week. I hope you enjoy the puzzle. I have a FEW MORE on the way.

Also, I got a puppy since last you heard from me. His name is Donut. He is far more entertaining than any crossword puzzle could hope to be. My kids are trying to make him Instagram-famous. Follow him if you like! @mydonutlife #shamelessplug

– puzzle by Trent Evans

NANCY:

As a passionate lifelong recreational tennis player, I have always loved the comment from Peter Fleming, winner of an astounding 52 doubles titles including seven Grand Slams with his partner John McEnroe: "The best doubles pair in the world is John McEnroe and anybody." And so, too, I have found myself fortunate enough to collaborate with Will Nediger — surely one of the best crossword constructors working today. In addition to being a consummate professional, he is a joy to work with — generous, good-natured, laid back, and seemingly without ego.

Knowing that I couldn't construct a crossword grid if my life depended on it, I wondered if having a good idea might "earn" me a top puzzle pro. Of course, having a good idea is not so easy: as one constructor/blog friend told me: "Ideas never come when you're trying to think them up. They come when you least expect them." As did this one. I don't remember the moment of inspiration, but once I sat down with the idea and saw that the symmetry would work, I thought: this is the one for which I should try to find a collaborator. Thanks to Lewis Rothlein and Erik Agard for getting me to Will Nediger.

As a solver, I like my puzzles tough and, even more, I like them tricky. That's the kind of puzzle I wanted to bestow on the puzzle-solving community. Hoping that it will give solvers the big "Aha Moment" that the best trick puzzles always give me.

About my background: I'm a writer, lyricist, and former Book Club Editor. I'm a lifelong Manhattanite and have had had Home Delivery from the NYT since 1971.

WILL:

Admittedly, I don't know anything about Peter Fleming, but Nancy is surely selling herself short here. The theme is the most important part of a puzzle, after all, and Nancy is a theme-making machine. She's also a delight to work with, and we've already got one more upcoming collaboration in the Times, hopefully not the last!

– puzzle by Nancy Stark and Will Nediger

I've become a massive fan of TANGERINE DREAM in the last couple of years. Shout out to the terrific ‘80s All Over podcast, whose review of Thief introduced me to the band, and particularly their movie soundtracks. I've seen about a dozen of the movies that they scored since writing this puzzle in July 2017. I'd say Thief is their best overall soundtrack, while Sorcerer is the best movie that they scored. Because most of their music is instrumental, I find it makes for an excellent accompaniment when filling a grid, as lyrics tend to distract me. Many a puzzle over the last few years has been written while listening to TD.

That said, I was more interested in the convenient letters of TANGERINE DREAM when I seeded the puzzle. I'd tried and failed at my first few attempts at executing this 14-10-10-14 quad-stagger layout, but this one turned out well. I was just trying for DELI at that central across; when I realized it could be expanded to PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC (which then opened up the slots for AMEN CORNER and PRINTER INK), I knew I had something. If I were constructing this today, I'd work on cleaning up the corners — there are a few too many abbreviations and initialisms for my current taste. But that center section is one of my favorites, and even more so because Tangerine Dream has become so personally beloved since writing the puzzle.

– puzzle by Andrew J. Ries

I first had the idea for this theme in the summer of 2017. At the time, I was surprised by how well the theme answers worked, but I couldn't put the grid together. By June of the next year, my program and my word list had improved to the point that I thought it was worth giving the theme another go. I don't usually come back to theme ideas, but FILM NOIR was so lucky that I felt I had to try. Since it has eight letters, I had to make the puzzle 16 columns wide. Perhaps I could have split FILM NOIR up into, for example, ELM and NOT, letting me use a standard size grid, but I felt that would be less interesting. However, the extra space also allowed me to have two theme answers in row three.

After fiddling around for a bit, I finally found a version I was satisfied with. However, I realized that PR STUNT had an extra consecutive letter in it, the "U". I considered changing the pair to something like SIGHING and BURSTIN, but I felt that they would have been less exciting than the existing theme answers.

I'm happy to be back in the New York Times, and I hope you enjoy this puzzle.

– puzzle by Daniel Larsen

This is my second NYT puzzle, and it was made about when my first NYT was published. And like that puzzle, this one utilizes left/right symmetry, again because of the lengths of the theme answers. But as an indie constructor, I enjoy doing unconventional things to get themes to work, and I'm always pleased when they do.

The hardest part of this one, by far, was fitting FACE/OFF in. Because it's an even length answer, I couldn't run it horizontally, and so it had to go in the center column. And the left/right symmetry meant having two answers of (at minimum) eight letters flank it and intersect with whatever entry went through the slash. It took lots of trial and error to get it to work, but I'm pleased with the result. That said, the shape of the center largely forced the rest of the grid, including making 7-Down six spaces long (more on this in a bit). I could have broken the top two rows up into three answers each, but I try to avoid too many shorter answers when possible, and I'm pleased with how these corners came out.

That said, I am a bit conflicted about 7-Down. As clued, it's a perfectly reasonable answer, in that it is unquestionably a third-person pronoun. Many people will see no problem with this clue/answer combo and move on without a second thought. But some people won't. I, for one, had some reservations about it then, and I don't think I'd use this answer if I were making this puzzle today. When the puzzle was accepted, Will et al. agreed with me that this was a clue to handle delicately. After all, as a pronoun, it's restrictive and (needlessly) excludes non-binary people, and has largely been supplanted by the singular they anyway.

There was a fair bit of discussion on how to address such concerns without being awkwardly worded, overly wordy, or calling too much attention to the answer; in the end, we agreed that the clue as written would work best for the previously mentioned reason that the clue works without distracting from the rest of the puzzle. Still, even though it's not discussed in the clue, I'm glad that Will et al. took the time to discuss this issue carefully and consider multiple viewpoints and suggestions.

– puzzle by Christopher Adams

As a constructor, I never know what will spark the idea for a puzzle; the only consistent factor seems to be the rewarding feeling of having that breakthrough that makes a puzzle possible. Here, the tiniest seed of an idea was planted while I was pre-editing clues for a themeless. I was trying to think of an interesting clue for DELTA, then suddenly realized that it is a letter in both the Greek and NATO alphabets. This connection must have lying dormant in my brain, waiting for its next big moment, because seeing the clue again some time later immediately gave me the idea of replacing individual letters in phrases with letters of the NATO alphabet.

This seemed like it might have potential, but I had difficulty coming up with theme answers. I reflected that using homophones for letters instead might allow for better themers, and then eventually realized I had inadvertently found the perfect way to tie my theme together— by replacing words of a "phonetic" alphabet of sorts with the letters of an actual phonetic alphabet! And just like that, I had the theme for my first published Sunday puzzle. TOO EASY, right?

The title I proposed was "Forming an Alliance", but I think the new title, "Code Switching," works remarkably well. I also had originally clued NATO and PHONETIC ALPHABET separately to explain what is replacing / replaced in the theme answers, but the new clue simplifies things. My revealers did seem a bit convoluted, and hopefully it will be enjoyable for solvers to piece together the inner workings of the theme without as much assistance. After all, epiphanies should be not just for constructors, but for solvers too!

It was interesting to have the opportunity to incorporate so much 7 and 8 letter bonus fill into a themed puzzle— enough to fill a themeless!— and I'm proud of how it turned out. I was pleased to work in entries like BEAR PIT, JAKARTA, JUJITSU, OOH LA LA, PROSPERO, and SISYPHUS, and I think the puzzle is pretty clean overall. I also like a lot of the clues of mine that survived— my favorites here are those for 19-Across, 33-Across, 67-Across, 120-Across, 88-Down, 99-Down, and 107-Down, along with the clue echoes of 15- through 17-Down.

It's exciting to be making my Sunday debut today, and hopefully it will be the first of many. Until next time, happy solving!

– puzzle by Trenton Charlson

ACME: Every now and then, Kevin sends me a ton of creative ideas to see if anything strikes me. We have radically different styles, though complementary, so we like to collaborate. He is a grid master with out-of-the-box ideas (see his Mullet puzzle!). We've made lots of puzzles, but this is only our second one for the NYT.

Two word phrases that start with the same two letters is fairly straightforward, so we were able to generate a long list of possible theme answers. After arguing whether or not LILYPAD is one or two words, or how well-known LUKE PERRY is (who knew how timely!) we put together a set ... neither made the final cut!

What makes this unusual is Kevin managed to get SEVEN theme entries (plus a three letter reveal) into a Monday puzzle! My job was to make the fill as smooth as I could.

(There is a bonus theme answer if you parse 23D, perhaps clued as "Hollywood dog star?")

KEVIN: I like collaborating with Andrea for many reasons. She's easy to get along with and has a great sense of humor. When I bring her an idea, she always does something to it that makes it better. Most importantly, she's a fantastic judge of what is and is not clean fill.

We had a ton of LP expressions to pick from for this puzzle. Some of my favorites that didn't make the cut are LUNG POWER, LINKIN PARK (we miss you Chester Bennington), LATERAL PASS, LITMUS PAPER, LANDING PARTY, LIBRARY PASTE, LOTUS POSITION, LACROSSE PLAYER, and LEARNERS PERMIT.

I'm glad we were able to get seven theme answers into the puzzle and to make two of them downs that crossed some of the across theme answers. That was not a gimme. There was no guarantee that was going to work, but we were able to get it to work, which was great.

For the record, I still don't know if LILY PAD is one word or two without googling it. It's two, right?

Thanks for solving!

– puzzle by Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels