Interview with Tom Pepper

Tom Pepper made one of the most creative puzzles earlier this year. Please click here if you have not solved the puzzle. Spoiler alert: Here is a wonderful write-up by the super-fast Howard Barkin.

Today is Tom's LA Times debut. He has had 2 puzzles published by the NY Times. You'll all like him when you meet with him in person, trust me! He is Minnesota Nice. (Added later: Please click here (George Barany's website) for more information on the puzzle).

  Left to Right: Tom Pepper, Marcia J. Brott, Victor Barocas, David Hanson, DK
&  Andrea Carla Michaels

I'm so in love with your "Executive Decisions" puzzle. How did the idea come to you and how long did it take you to complete the grid?  

Thanks, C.C.  It started out as a list of the presidents on the faces of U.S. coins.  The first problem: that's boring.  The second problem: the Mint had recently started making commemorative dollar coins with all the presidents on them, which I didn't know until I was already knee-deep in the puzzle.  So I gave up on that idea.  But I really liked the gimmick part of the grid, and I had put a lot of effort into making it work, so I noodled on it more, and came up with a better context for it. (I'm being intentionally vague in case someone reading this wants to dig it out of the BEQ archives and solve it.)  I wish I had logged my hours on that puzzle.  I think I'd be shocked at the number.  I'm sure it's over 100.
 

What are the other theme answers you also considered but discarded for today's BUGS puzzle?  

My original effort had seven themers: HIDDENMIKES, FLUS, OBSESSIONS, ELMERSNEMESIS, PCGLITCHES, IRKS, and ORIGINALVWS ... but all that theme caused the fill to suffer greatly, so I scaled back to five--only HIDDENMIKES from my original grid survived to the end.  Surprisingly, I never came up with a good answer for the most common usage of bugs: those creepy-crawly things.
 

Tell us a bit about your background. What prompted you to make your first crossword?   

Grew up in MN. College in Oregon (Go Ducks!). CPA. MBA. Finance guy. So numbers are my work, words are my play time.  I'd solved crosswords on and off for years, and made a few (horrible) birthday/Christmas puzzles for family and friends along the way.  But two years ago, when my second daughter left the nest and I had all this time on my hands, I bought Crossword Compiler as a birthday present to myself and added "Get a crossword puzzle published somewhere" to my bucket list.

Which part do you enjoy the most in the construction process: theme development, filling or cluing?  

Good question.  It's kind of euphoric when a clever theme idea or a fabulous, never-used clue comes to mind, but it doesn't happen that often, so theme development and cluing are usually more work than pleasure for me.  But once I get a theme framed up, it's hard to pull me away from the filling process.  Filling a puzzle is solving a puzzle in itself.  I stay up way too late some nights "solving the puzzle."  You're probably thinking that sounds like an addiction ... and you're probably right!

  

What kind of themes and fill appeal to you and what are the ones you try to avoid in your grids? 

The best theme answers make you smile as you fill them in.  I like puns, re-parsing of words, current slang ... and the edgier (without going over the edge), the better.  I try to avoid the words people complain about in the blogs.  A lot of them are 3-letter answers, so I try to minimize the number of 3-letter words when creating a grid.  I'm working on a puzzle right now where the theme answers go around the edge--it's the last time I'm going to try that!  Way too difficult working from the outside in.

You mentioned that you have some 1960s baseball cards. What's the most cherished card in your collection and what's the one card you'd like to own someday? 

I was a big Willie Mays fan, and I like the purple color on his 1965 card, so while it's not the most valuable, it's my favorite.  (Tony O's 65 card is purple too--another favorite!)  The cards I'd like to own (again) are the dozen or so I gave away back in the '80s to a kid I was babysitting who wanted to start collecting.  I know my 1965 Mantle card was one of them.  He told me the next day he'd looked them up and they were worth $400.  I had no idea.
 

Besides crosswords, what else do you do for fun?  

I enjoy my time volunteering as a tutor to East African adults one night a week, and as a teacher of a 12-week class through the National Alliance on Mental Illness for family members of people living with a mental illness.  And I love to play golf, play Boggle, and travel.

Interview with Patti Varol

Patti Varol is the assistant to Rich Norris, editor of LA Times Crossword. She delivers the good & bad news to constructors on whether their puzzles are accepted or rejected. Patti's emails are always clear, thoughtful & gentle. As a constructor, I appreciate very much the constructive feedback she and Rich provide.

Patti is also a fast solver (176th at the ACPT 2011) & a brilliant constructor. If you click here, you'll see all the puzzles she constructed for the LA Times the past few years. They are all theme-dense & super smooth in fill. She makes things look easy.

Can you tell us a bit about your background? How did you get interested in crosswords?

I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t solving puzzles! When I was a kid, I used to devour Games Magazine with my grandparents, and we’d solve all kinds of newspaper crosswords together – we weren’t picky! If it had clues and a grid, we tackled it. Puzzles and games were a big part of my childhood.

Most of the jobs I’ve had – and I’ve had a lot of very different jobs – were just a way to pay the bills while I finished school and tried to become a writer. But then I spotted an ad for a puzzle editor, and I couldn’t apply fast enough.

Being a puzzle editor for Penny Press was more than just a way to pay the bills, and I spent twelve very fun years there. I’ve edited or constructed just about every kind of puzzle you can think of, and I’ve worked on every stage of puzzle publishing – layout, design, even software development.

My first year at Penny Press, which was also Rich’s first year as the LAT editor, Rich and I met at the Pleasantville crossword tournament. About a year later, we worked together at another tournament (at Iona College, my alma mater), and we became very good friends.

Rich invited me to be an LAT test-solver, and then hired me to test-solve and fact-check puzzles for Crosswords Club. He encouraged me to start constructing crosswords, and he convinced me to go to ACPT. When I left Penny Press to become a freelance writer, Rich offered me the Assistant's job.

I usually describe myself as a freelance writer and editor, and I do still write book reviews and essays and the occasional short story, but the majority of my freelance work is in crosswords and word games. I play with words all day. Jobs don’t get better than this!

 

What's your philosophy when it comes to fill a Monday grid? You have 5 themes today, 5 in your last Monday puzzle. All pretty long entries, yet the fill is so clean.

Easy, early-week puzzles are such a challenge to make. A Monday needs to be accessible to every solver, even the most inexperienced – the last thing a Monday should do is frustrate a brand-new solver. The theme needs to be straightforward, the fill can’t have anything too weirdly obscure, and the clues should lead the solver to the answer. But it should also be fun and interesting for experienced solvers – that’s the trickiest part. Having 5 or more themers in a Monday can help make an easy puzzle more interesting for experienced solvers.

What kind of theme & fill fascinate you and what kind do you try to avoid in your puzzles?

I love being surprised by a puzzle – a clue that makes me look at an ordinary word in a new way, or a pun that makes me laugh out loud, or a theme with an unexpected twist. And I’m always impressed with a puzzle when the nontheme fill is as lively and as interesting as the theme itself.

Every solver has hit something in a puzzle – a lame or inconsistent themer, too-trivial trivia in a clue, crossing obscurities in a grid -- that makes you want to throw your newspaper across the room. I try to avoid the stuff that makes you want to throw things.

Which part do you enjoy the most in the construction process: theme development, filling or cluing?

It’s all great, but cluing is my favorite. Each part of the process is a different challenge for me. I’m very good at coming up with solid themes … that have been done a million times already. I’m also very good at coming up with themes that will never in a million years fit in any grid. So, when I get to the cluing stage, the hardest work is behind me. And I get to play with words some more.

What kind of tools & references do you use for theme brainstorming, cluing and fact checks?

I have a ratty old graph paper notebook that I use for developing themes and for trying out grid designs, but I use Crossword Compiler for constructing. I often dip into Steven Glazier’s Word Menu for inspiration (themes and clues). As anyone who has ever helped me move can attest, I own more dictionaries and reference books than I feel like counting or listing right now. Friends who have helped me move my very heavy reference books do not want to know that a) I do much of my fact-checking online and b) the one book I use every day is the tiniest: Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.

How challenging is it to be Rich's assistant?

I have the best job ever, with the best boss ever (and I’m not just saying that because I know he’ll read this). Rich and I have been friends and colleagues for many years; we make a great team, and I love working with him.

The biggest challenge of the job is writing emails to constructors when a theme just doesn’t appeal to Rich. Rich and I both firmly believe that constructors need detailed feedback on their work: newbie constructors can only benefit from hearing precisely what works and doesn’t work in the puzzles they’re making. And more senior constructors can sometimes develop blind spots about their puzzles. The more specific we are in our acceptance and rejection letters, the better our constructors will be.

Sometimes, though, a theme just doesn’t appeal to Rich, and there’s not much more to say about it. It’s just a taste thing. Those are the hardest letters to write, because I never want constructors to feel like they’ve been sent a form letter or that we didn’t evaluate a puzzle thoroughly.

Besides crosswords, what else do you do for fun?

At the moment, I am stiff and sore and sunburned from a 15-mile bike ride, so I’m hesitating to call it “fun,” but I do love exploring my little part of California on my bike.

I’m a Mets fan, and I’m listening to them lose to the Phillies (… again) as I’m typing these answers, so I’m starting to wonder if there’s anything I do that can be called “fun”!

I’m a bit of a foodie, and I love discovering new restaurants as much as I love to cook. I have a weakness for farmers markets, and this New York girl cannot get enough of the fresh produce available here in California year-round. I still can’t believe I can buy avocados and ginger and grapefruit at a farmers market! I really enjoy experimenting with new recipes and ingredients. Cooking helps me unwind; it’s a meditative experience for me. I just hate doing the dishes.

I’m also a bookworm; I read three or four novels a week. And I play video games more than I probably should, and I watch old episodes of Doctor Who more than anyone should.

Interview with Erik Agard

If you have not seen this video crossword Erik Agard put together, please make sure you do. Click on the numbers, the clues will show up. 

Erik is a student at the University of Maryland. He finished 14th in this year's ACPT. Erik has been published by the LA Times & NY Times. He also publishes a new puzzle in his blog (Glutton for Pun) every Wednesday.

Left to Right: John Beck, John Wilson, Erik Agard, 2012 ACPT

How did the POWER COUPLE idea come to you and what were the other theme entries you considered but discarded?  It's always challenging to come up with natural "in the language" entries for this type of both words precede/follow theme type.

I have absolutely no idea. I rarely know where these things come from. I know I really wanted to put BLACK in one of the theme entries but I couldn't find a match for it. 

I just love this grid. 6 theme entries (60 squares!) & PHOTOSHOP & PAPARAZZI. What's your philosophy in grid designing & filling? What kind of entries do you love and what kind do try to avoid in your grids?

Thank you! Me too! My approach is: design the hardest possible grid to fill. Fill it. If you can't fill it, cry a little, maybe have a bath, and then try the next hardest grid, and so on. Being a narcissist, I think the puzzle is a canvas for self-expression, so I love entries that relate to my life (for example, I like 22-down music, and the 20-across is one of my favorite snacks). I try to avoid stuff I never would have heard of if I didn't do crosswords, though it doesn't always work out (53-down, 56-down).

What's your background and how did you get into crossword construction?

For high school I got sent to a math, science, and computer science program, which was suboptimal, being that I suck at all of those. But I got something out of it. Mr. Stein - calculus teacher, ACPT-goer, Puzzlepalooza co-founder - shared his love of crosswords with the class, and it stuck. My constructing career, then, evolved as a series of attempts to stump him (or at least take him at least ten minutes to solve).

Can you tell us a bit behind-the-scenes story about the making of that video crossword puzzle you helped produced? It's so fun to watch.

In a nutshell: I constructed a 42 word grid, found 42 brilliant volunteers, and nagged them for a few months until they each sent me a video clue. Crossword people are seriously the best.

You've been publishing a fresh puzzle every week in your blog since last September. Where do you usually find theme inspirations? 

Again, your guess is as good as mine. Sometimes there's a phrase I want to use (like BRACKET BUSTER or MILA KUNIS), so I build a theme around it. 

You're a fast solver. How long does it take you to solve a typical LAT Wednesday puzzle? Do you always grok the theme while solving or speed is your only concern? 

Usually two to two and a half minutes. The fastest puzzles are the ones where I don't pay any attention to the theme, but I do try to take a look when I've finished.

How many puzzles do you solve every day and who are your favorite constructors?

At least seven. Double digits on a good day. I have far too many of those to not leave some out, but here's a few (they all have something important in common): Matt Gaffney. Brendan Emmett Quigley. Ben Tausig. Neville Fogarty. Andy Kravis. Peter Broda. Matt Jones. Pete Muller. Patrick Blindauer. 

Besides crossword, what are your other hobbies?

People keep asking me this and it's making me think I need to find another hobby. Yikes.

Added later:

Please click here to see a wonderful Washington Post interview with Erik.

Interview with Jeff Hyson and Victor Barocas

Some of you might remember Victor Barocas from the Minnesota Crossword Tournament recap I put on the blog in early Feb, or this fantastic "Latin Square" rebus puzzle he made for the Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle in 2011, or this Blind Carbon Copy puzzle where CC is hidden inside the black squares, or this "Three Musketeers" puzzle we solved in 2012. His puzzles are always inventive and original. 

Jeff Hyson finished 36th in this year's ACPT. He beat Peter Gordon and Rich Norris :-) Jeff also test-solved all the MN tournament puzzles for Victor and provided very valuable  feedback to constructors. Congrats on the debut, Jeff!

How did you start collaborating on this puzzle? I presume Jeff came up with the FLOAT idea?

Jeff:  Victor and I met at the 2012 ACPT in Brooklyn by sheer chance. It was my first ACPT and I just happened to sit near him; we discovered we were both academics and spent the rest of the weekend chatting between rounds and over lunch. After the tournament, Victor asked if I wanted to test-solve some of his puzzles, which I happily did -- his grids are really creative and very smooth, and it was fascinating to get an inside look at the construction process. After a while, Victor asked if I'd be interested in co-constructing a puzzle, and I leaped at the chance. He already had the FLOAT theme and the grid all in place; I took responsibility for the clues.

Victor: Jeff pretty much said it all.  We got along well, and I like working with other people, so it seemed like something worth trying.

Did you each fill and clue half the grid? What did the collaborative process look like?

Jeff:  Victor came up with the FLOAT theme and filled the grid. Once he sent that to me, I came up with the clues. Since this was my first-ever shot at crossword construction, I wasn't always sure how to pitch the clues' difficulty, but I looked back at some previous LAT crosswords to get a sense of the proper style and challenge. After I'd drafted a full batch of clues, Victor offered some suggested edits, and after a couple of further back-and-forths, he sent everything off to Rich Norris. Rich then gave his own very helpful suggestions, including a requested revision of one corner to eliminate an unacceptable entry (IED, if I recall?). Victor redid that part of the grid, the last few clues got written (mostly by Victor and Rich, I believe), and that was that.

Victor: Again, not much to add.  I have never split a grid in half - is that how you and Don do it? (From C.C.: Yes, Don and I split up grids most of the time.)
 

What's your background and how did you get into crossword construction?

Jeff: I'm a history professor at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, specializing in American cultural, intellectual, and environmental history. I've long had enormous admiration for constructors but had never attempted making a puzzle myself. As I got more deeply into solving over the past few years, I did try to make a couple of grids but soon gave up in frustration. Victor's offer of co-constructing and starting with the clues was a great opportunity to test the waters. Now I think I'm ready to swim a little deeper and give solo constructing another shot.

Victor: I am in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota (Go Gophers!), specializing in soft-tissue mechanics.  I have been doing crosswords for as long as I can remember, and after getting a little more into them in the last few years, I decided to take a shot at constructing. I like trying to fit the words together.
 

What kind of themes and fill thrill you and what kind do you try to avoid in your grids?

Jeff: I'll let Victor talk about his constructing strategies and preferences. As a solver, I truly do enjoy themes like this one for FLOAT: several seemingly unrelated theme entries linked through a surprising revealer. I'm also a sucker for good puns and wordplay, provided that the entries/clues aren't so "wacky" that they feel totally forced. For fill, I'm especially strong at pop culture (I teach a course on the history of US pop culture, and I have two middle-school kids, so I'm up on current fads), so I enjoy the satisfaction of picking up on a relatively obscure movie or TV reference. Not surprisingly, then, I often click with Brendan Emmett Quigley's puzzles; his ACPT #3 this year was where I really hit my stride.

Victor: Fundamentally, the puzzle should be about the solver, not the constructor, so I want to make puzzles in which the solver gets to have the aha moment (either with or without a revealer's help).  I will generally sacrifice a theme entry to get better fill - bad fill almost guarantees a bad solving experience. I'll sometimes try to do weird things with the puzzle, but that runs the danger of making it about me rather than the solver, so sometimes it doesn't work out.


Both of you are fast solvers, how many puzzles do you solve every day and who are your favorite constructors?

Jeff:  I get in to the office pretty early every day, so I try to run through the usual daily puzzles on Amy Reynaldo's Crossword Fiend site (NYT, LAT, CrossSynergy, Newsday) before buckling down to work. If you add in the various weekly puzzles (BEQ, AV Club, WSJ, Reagle, Fireball, etc.), I probably do 5-6 puzzles a day on average. I'll also sometimes solve a couple more from books at bedtime. Before each ACPT, I bought a couple of additional puzzle books to get my paper-solving skills up to speed, so I was probably up to 10 a day in those last couple of weeks. As I said above, I'm a huge fan of Brendan Emmett Quigley's puzzles for their creativity and currency. Matt Gaffney's metas are often astonishing in their ingenuity; I've probably had more "how-did-he-do-that" moments with his puzzles than with anyone else's. And for sheer, smooth, consistent brilliance, I don't think anyone can touch Patrick Berry. (Oh, and Victor's not bad, either!)

Victor:  I do 2-3 puzzles most days.  Five would be a lot.  Patrick Berry is the best, and I especially like that he uses Greek and Roman history or mythology, which is both a strength for me and a nostalgic pleasure because I spent a lot of time with the classics in high school. I have never seen a Mike Nothnagel puzzle that I didn't like, and I also like  Peter Gordon and Patrick Blindauer. I thought that Andrew Ries's recent contest was superb.  Finally, I always struggle with Joon Pahk's puzzles because his cluing doesn't jibe with my thinking somehow, but it's a good struggle and never feels unfair, so I am always excited when I see his byline.

Besides crosswords, what else do you do for fun?

Jeff: I'm a big sports fan, though the Philadelphia teams are testing my loyalties even more than usual these days. My son and I attended second and third round NCAA tournament games in Philly this weekend; seeing #15 seed Florida Gulf Coast University upset #2 Georgetown was one of my all-time greatest sports-spectator experiences. I also play piano and sing (my wife and I met in the Yale Glee Club), though not as much as I used to Before Kids. And I enjoy playing board games with my son and daughter, who are the funniest people I know. 

Victor: I like to do stuff with my family, I read a fair amount, and I play racquetball a couple of times a week.  I share Jeff's affection for sports and pain at being shackled with lousy teams (but, boy, can that Adrian Peterson run!). I also have a great job, and I enjoy all aspects of it: doing research, teaching classes, mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, and even some of the administrative work. 

Interview with Alex Bajcz

I was so delighted with the ZERO G puzzle Alex Bajcz (Hungarian name, pronounced like "Badges") constructed for us in February. I had previously seen a couple puzzles with a simple G dropping gimmick, so the spelling changes Alex implemented in his theme struck me as more nuanced and elegant. Just a wonderful debut puzzle and I look forward to many creative grids from Alex,  a PhD student at University of Maine. Hello ORONO!

 
How did this theme come to you and what were the trouble spots in your constructing process? 13's as the first & last entries always make gridding/filling trickier.

Let's see...I recently re-took up crossword writing last summer, and this was the puzzle idea that drove me to do it. Not sure how exactly it came to me. I think I was reading up on types of themes and came across "container" themes and UNDERCOVER COP just came to me in a flash. As for the grid, I can't really remember struggling with any particular part. My grid designing skill is most definitely better now, I'll say that much. I do remember the NE was a little tricky (that ELIO/ AND ON crossing is yucky, I know!), as was getting LIQUORED UP to work...Qs are hard haha. 

What's your background and how did you get into crossword construction?

I took up crossword solving my freshman year in college because A) paying attention in class is hard for me and B) no one would play Scrabble with me any more. In all actuality, I'm not terribly good at Scrabble, but I do know my QINDARs and QANATs if you catch my drift. Crosswords gave me my word game fix without having to involve any other people. It's funny to me that I like word games as much as I do because I am an atrocious speller (something that hasn't cost me while writing a puzzle....yet (knock on wood)). I took up crossword writing because I was A) tired of being bad at solving crosswords and B) because I wanted to contribute rather than just consume. I'm still bad at solving, but now I get twice the enjoyment out of crosswords! haha

What kind of theme and fill excite you and what kind do you try to avoid in your grids?

I think all themes are potentially good. I think perhaps I prefer themes that are "tricky;" there's a NYT puzzle from a while back that had MIXED METAPHOR as a central answer and 6 anagrams of METAPHOR crossing it, which probably ranks as my favorite puzzle to date. But I think "straight" themes can be charming to solve also. Basically, when I finish a puzzle, I want to feel two things: "This puzzle definitely exists for a reason" (a good idea spawned it) and "This constructor really took their time choosing theme and fill answers." If I feel those two ways, I'm satisfied. 

Clean fill is super important to me. For every spot, I search at least two databases and create lists of all the words that could go there, and then choose only the ones I like well enough to use. I avoid things like partials, obscure words, and things I personally wouldn't have recognized (but there are always exceptions). I prefer multi-word answers (PICK OVER) and "vocalizations" (LET'S PLAY) the most. I also have to admit I really like "debuts." Anything that might make folks smile as they fill it in is also a plus--things like HARPOON GUN or BALL PIT and the like.

Which part do you normally spend the most time on in the construction process: theme brainstorming, gridding or cluing?

Cluing is almost an afterthought for me, I'll admit. I give it two passes. If I can't come up with something clever after two "tries," I give up and leave it to the editors. That said, I do try hard these days to make all my clues "new." 

Filling takes the most time because I'm patient and do it "by hand," but theme brainstorming is by far where the most mental energy of mine goes. I get writer's block big time with crosswords--I'm useless without inspiration! That's why it has been fun for me to collaborate with a fellow constructor recently. 

What puzzles do you solve every day and which constructors constantly inspire you?

I solve the NYT every day. I used to solve the LAT every day back in undergrad, but I switched about two years ago. Elizabeth Gorski and Jeff Chen are probably my favorite constructors right now. Liz always amazes me with her creativity, and they both almost always produce sterling, lively fill, which I really value. Patrick Berry's puzzles also tend to impress me, even though I can almost never solve them.

Besides crosswords, what are your other interests? 

I'm an evolutionary ecology PhD student who studies the reproductive behavior of fruiting plants. In other words, I study why fruits are the way they are--it's very delicious research. I'm working on wild blueberry right now, but I've worked on raspberries in the past and would like to return to them some day. I'm also a big trivia nut in addition to my love of word games. I attend a weekly trivia contest, run my own private trivia league for my friends, and play on LearnedLeague. I'm as bad at trivia as I am at solving crosswords, but I love them both. 

Interview with Neville Fogarty

Look what I found when I googled Neville Fogarty? A 11-year-old Jeopardy! "Back to School Week" (October 3, 2000) contestant with a pet fish named Bob Saget. So don't feel bad if you're stumped by his puzzles.

Neville started constructing puzzles in 2008, and he has been published by the LA Times, NY Times & the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Neville just started a new site and publishes a new puzzle every Friday. Click here and check his offering today.

Tell us a bit about your background. How did you develop an interest in crossword construction?

I started solving crosswords regularly in the summer of 2007 in preparation for an audition for the short-lived game show "Merv Griffin's Crosswords." Later that year, I tried writing one myself just to see if I could make one by hand. My first puzzle wasn't perfect, but it was pretty fun to make, so I spent the next few months reading up on construction online and refining my skills by writing a weekly puzzle for my school newspaper.

You've been making both themed and themeless puzzles (MONEY SHOT!),  which one do you enjoy more and what are the major differences in your approach?

Slipping phrases like MONEY SHOT into a themeless is great fun, but I really love writing a good themed puzzle. There's just something about finding some phrases with a common bond or a neat phrase to riff off of. I'm not giving up on either of them.

When I go to write a themed puzzle, I usually already have a theme in mind. either I've noticed a cool pattern in a word, or a bit of wordplay somewhere. Sometimes I'll have stumbled across a nice "tie-together" entry for a theme, and I'll work backwards from that. Then it's a lot of brainstorming to come up with the best theme entries possible before I go to fill the grid. Since I've been blogging over at the Crossword Fiend, I've become very conscious of what themes we've seen before and what is and isn't fun for the solver. I try to keep this in mind when I'm constructing: What experience am I bringing to the solver? I want them to be able solve a fresh, new puzzle each time, so I have to put my themed puzzles through a lot of internal scrutiny.

With a themeless puzzle, it's a similar story, but I have some more leeway. I don't have to have a new idea tying the puzzle together. Instead, I get to rely on picking out some fun names and phrases to make a puzzle shine. Most of my themelesses feature a pinwheel-type pattern - stacks of 8 to 10-letter entries in each corner. I usually pick out one entry for each corner and then try to fill around it, making each segment of the puzzle as lively as possible.

As a young solver/constructor, what kind of themes/fill fascinate you the most and what kind of themes/fill do you dread seeing in a puzzle?

I love seeing contemporary titles (books, TV shows, etc.), full names of well-known people, and current turns of phrase in crosswords.  I usually don't mind when things push the so-called breakfast test. I don't need a theme to be mindbending to enjoy it; just something that has interesting phrases and clever clues.

I'm not a fan of entries that I can't reason out if I haven't heard of them, especially ones where the crossing is unhelpful. This mainly applies to unfamiliar abbreviations crossing not-so-well-known names that don't even look like names to me.

Which part do you normally spend the most time on in the construction process: theme brainstorming, gridding or cluing?

I really enjoy cluing, and I can bang it out pretty quickly, usually. Even for themed puzzles, I probably spend the most time filling the grid. I tend to write more than one grid just to make sure I'm making as fun a puzzle as possible (or because I've worked myself into an undesirable corner), so the time spent gridding tends to add up.

Which is the best puzzle you've made and why?

Now that's a hard one; it often feels like whichever one I'm working on is my current favorite! I'm quite partial to the most recent themeless puzzle I posted on my new webpage: http://nevillefogarty.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/puzzle-9-themeless-3/. But if you ask me next week, it'll likely change.

Wat puzzles do you solve every day and which constructors do you find most inspiring?

I solve the Los Angeles Times and New York Times puzzle everyday like clockwork. I think my short list of inspirational constructors would include Mike Nothnagel and Doug Peterson, primarily for their awesome themeless puzzles, Brendan Emmett Quigley and Matt Gaffney for their ability to mess with my head, and Merl Reagle for his overall punniness. I wish I could steal some of their abilities!

Besides crossword, what else do you do for fun?

Most of my time away from crosswords is spent working toward a PhD in mathematics - I'm a second-year graduate student at the University of Kentucky. But beyond that, I love playing racquetball, video games and ultimate frisbee.

Interview with John Farmer

I love John Farmer's puzzles. They're always an adventure.

John's "Say the magic word" NY Times (March 11, 2010, click here.) is one of my all-time favorites. He has all the magic word phrases HOCUS POCUS, ABRACADABRA & OPEN SESAME as 3 long theme entries, then SAY THE MAGIC WORD runs diagonally from the first square to the last square in the grid. Letters P, L, E, A, S & E are circled to add the final touch to the puzzle. Just beautiful.

His subsequent "Take a steep nose dive" (NY Times, June 24, 2010) is equally fresh & inventive, as are most of his themed puzzles.

I'm so pleased that John took the time and answered my questions in detail. Enjoy the interview. This is certainly one of the most informative and educating ones we've had on the blog.

What are the seed entries for this puzzle? And which part gave you the most trouble during the construction?

Best I can recall (it's been about a year since I made this one), ZOMBIE LIES was the first seed, though in a different spot and in a slightly different grid. In what passes for political discourse in this land of ours, truth often takes a beating. ZOMBIE LIES is a pretty useful term to describe the kind of false claims that are often and easily refuted, yet never eliminated. Killed one day, stalking victims the next. I first met the phrase in reading about politics, but I've heard it in other contexts as well. WAKE THE DEAD seemed like an apt complement, another answer I don't recall seeing in a crossword before -- always a plus.

I'm not sure where any trouble may have been. At 72 words, it makes the cut for a themeless but it's not the most ambitious of grids. I may have started with more white space in the NE and SW, then added a couple of solitary black squares to make those corners workable. That probably preserved GET SHORTY, a book and a movie I enjoyed, and an answer I like. MORISSETTE, iirc, was a late fill-in for "marionette," which had good cluing potential but in the end didn't fit. Otherwise, I'm not sure what I thought about PANEL SAW, but it does have a certain "cutting-edge" appeal to it.

What's your background? And how did you get into crossword construction?

I've read of many people who picked up the crossword habit from their parents and have been solving puzzles since they could read and write. That is not my story.

I grew up on Long Island, the youngest of four kids. I was into sports, rock 'n' roll, and a million other things, but I don't remember touching a crossword in those days. Maybe I did and I was so overmatched I blocked any remnant of the memory. Or maybe I was just underwhelmed. Anyway, my mom enjoyed word puzzles, and my dad, though not a regular solver, had a good mind for that sort of thing, and whatever seed they might have planted was dormant for many years. I was into my forties before I "discovered" crosswords. Still a beginner, I remember struggling one day with a puzzle in the paper and finding certain squares required multiple letters. That intrigued me. Around that time, I stumbled upon the old crossword forum at the N.Y. Times site, and that got me hooked as much as anything. At first I may have been looking for answers, but mostly I came back for the conversation, and with a number of constructors part of the discussion I learned a lot about how puzzles are put together. Before long, I made a few myself. At the start I used pencil and paper and a word list at an Internet site. Not exactly state of the art, but eventually I got a few puzzles published. I did finally upgrade my tools.

Puzzle-making is strictly a sideline for me. My day job is in the telecom biz. Today I live in L.A., with my wife, Sylvie, a teacher, and our son, Donovan, who just completed kindergarten.

How would you describe your style? What kind of theme/fill fascinate you the most and what kind do you try to avoid in your grids?

Style is not anything I ever think about. If I thought my style could be defined, I'd probably try something different next time out.

What I look for in making a puzzle -- whether it's a theme idea, seeds for a themeless, fill for a section, or clues -- is something I haven't seen before. I'm fond of tricky themes, anything with an extra level for the solver to unravel, so my puzzles tend to run middle of the week or later. (My only Monday was a Tonight Show-themed crossword that ran in the N.Y. Times on the day of Conan's debut -- a puzzle with a surprisingly short shelf life.)

Crosswords are a pastiche of language and culture. Anything appealing in the language and culture will likely be appealing in a puzzle. The 23-word title of Fiona Apple's new album will be hard to fit, but you get the idea. Find things that are relevant to people, find things that reflect the way we use words to communicate, mix it up with a bit of wordplay, and you have the makings of a good crossword puzzle.

For a few of my do's, don'ts, and other musings, let's go to bullets:

· Idioms and neologisms are good. Unusual words can be colorful and worth using. Save the obscurities for Scrabble. ("Metapneustic," anyone?)

· Crosswordese. It's a term I don't use. It once meant something, but people use it now to mean different things and it's lost its value. I've seen words like ERIE, ALI, and OREO labeled crosswordese because they're common answers, but they're all legit. On the other hand, ANOA, once the poster child for crosswordese, is so rarely seen in puzzles these days that it's a stretch to call it crosswordese anymore. (Maybe "old chestnut" would be a better term.)

·An answer ought to stand on its own in a grid. If it's a partial phrase, the answer is missing something. It's entirely an aesthetic thing, but I don't like partials and I try to use them no more than once in a puzzle. Maybe that's even too much. I try to avoid prefixes and suffixes for similar reasons.

·On a related note, full names are a plus, but there's nothing wrong with first names or surnames. Singular, that is.

·Abbreviations are fine as long as they're common (etc.), especially ones spoken as written (FBI, PhD). Just don't push it (Asst. D.A., Rt. Rev.).

·A single Roman numeral doesn't bother me. Shorter is better.

·Most "rules" about crosswords can be ignored if you have a good reason. Just make sure it's a good reason.

What's the puzzle you're most proud of and why? I just adored your SAY THE MAGIC WORD puzzle. So many layers of magic and so many lively entries, despite the incredible diagonal restriction you had.

Thanks, C.C. The idea for the MAGIC WORD puzzle came while working on a themeless. I had to rip out one section including a 15, and the only substitute I could find was SAY THE MAGIC WORD. The double meaning of the phrase screamed "Theme!" to me and I immediately abandoned that puzzle to make the other. The diagonal answer was a matter of necessity; same for the scrambled letters in circles that spelled PLEASE. I was lucky to squeeze in what I could without too much collateral damage. In any event, I'm glad you liked it.

The puzzle that I'm probably happiest about is an early one of mine that ran in the N.Y. Times. (http://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=3/9/2006) It had three main theme entries, all 16 letters -- SQUARE DANCE CLUBS, THREE SQUARE MEALS, WASHINGTON SQUARE -- and the gimmick was that each answer was placed in the grid not just Across, and not just Down, but in the form of a square. It was a puzzle that played with solvers' expectations. I like that element of novelty, and it got a terrific response. It had taken a long time to make the puzzle finally work, and I got the sense then a good idea is worth pursuing if you stick with it.

You're one of the few constructors who bring us both themed and themeless puzzles. Which ones do you enjoy more and what are the major differences in your constructing approach?

I'll take a fresh theme with a twist to it, if you've got one. It's hard to find something truly original (most themes tend to be variations on themes done before), but if the stars are aligned, that's where you find the gold -- something memorable. People still talk about the Election Day puzzle of 1996 but may not remember the crossword in yesterday's paper.

My approach on themes, I suppose, is something like this: groundbreaking is good, but not necessary; always look for some element that has not been done before; consistency is important, but if you need to mix it up don't leave one entry the odd man out; simple is good, and intricate is good, but convoluted is not; what matters is not how you get there but does the final result "work."

A themeless is simpler in one respect -- right, no theme -- but the bar is raised for everything else. Quality fill is critical; fresh, tricky cluing is key; a minimum of crud is essential. What that means is that the grid may need to be worked and reworked to get it ready for primetime. (Actually good advice for any puzzle.) I tend to spend a lot more time on cluing, too. Clue databases are helpful resources, but they really should post this notice: "These are clues that have been used in other crosswords. Now find something else." A good themeless should be a challenge, and about the best way to get that is with misdirection and wordplay. A clue like "Battle fatigue?" will stump solvers until they have a few crossers, then they'll get a payoff and get to feel smart about it too. (That clue was Rich's, btw, and the answer is RUN ON EMPTY.)

I enjoy making both types of puzzles, themed and themeless. In either case, I try to stay flexible. I was working on a coffee-themed puzzle, then discovered something similar had been done before. One of my answers was BAZOOKA JOE, which I liked a lot, so I kept that and started a themeless. (Sort of the reverse of the MAGIC WORD experience.) Making a puzzle is a bit like solving one. You never know what you're going to get.

What puzzles do you solve every day and which constructors constantly inspire you?

I solve the N.Y. Times every day, the L.A. Times most days, the Fireball each week. In a typical week I'll solve a handful of other puzzles, and how many all depends on how busy I am. Among the others are the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Onion, Ink Well, Jonesin', Post Puzzler, Sunday Challenge, and any of a half-dozen others. I'm a big fan of Matt Gaffney's weekly contest, though it's been off my rotation lately.

There are tons of puzzle constructors whose work I enjoy. It would be a long list, if I made one, and for the most part you already know the names. (Check the column on the right for the "Interviews" roll. Not a bad start, though hardly complete.)

The most enjoyable puzzles don't all come from the usual suspects. Hardly. Let me name a few constructors who have hit it out of the park in recent memory: Jeff Chen (U-TURN palindromes), Caleb Rasmussen (NO U-TURN), Tracy Gray (keeping with the flow of traffic, RIGHT ON RED); George Barany (ALAN TURING tribute, in the CHE), Xan Vongsathorn ("Getting Around"), Josh Knapp (themeless), and hot off the press as I write this, Mike Buckley (PENTOMINOES). None of them has a ton of credits (yet), but they all can make one helluva crossword. The next great puzzle may be the debut in tomorrow's paper.

If you want inspiration, think about the constructors who worked before the technology revolution came along. How many of us could do what they did?

Besides crosswords, what are your other interests?

You're saying there's more to life than crossword puzzles? Well, yes there is.

My time off work, when it comes, is usually family time. T-ball practice, soccer games, teaching my son how to beat me at chess (then he can teach me). If there's a 6-year-old having a birthday party in our corner of town, half a chance I'll be there.

I'm a huge movie fan and was writing regularly about films at my website (http://minaday.com), though not so much in the past year. I also had posted crosswords there every month, and you can find them at the puzzle archive.

I follow baseball. I enjoy reading. I run every day and get in a few 5Ks or 10Ks during the year, or sometimes a marathon. In my otherwise free time, I continue to make notes for a novel, a work I promise myself that I will actually write sometime before the end of the millennium (yes, this millennium).

Interview with Joe DiPietro

Today is our second encounter with Joe DiPietro, one of the most prolific NYT constructors in the Will Shortz era. Since 1995, Joe has had 109 puzzles published by the NY Times; 22 are Sundays.

Besides the NY Times and LA Times, Joe also makes puzzles for the Wall Street Journal. In fact, his "LIKE MY NEW OUTFIT?" ("Sets in Order" WSJ, Sept 3, 2010) is one of my favorite theme entries. So creative!

What's the inspiration for this puzzle? What were the other theme entries you also considered but discarded?

I think I just heard the phrase LEAVES IN THE DUST and worked it from there. I got the first three theme entries pretty quickly, but it took a long time to find the fourth (PLANT IN ONE'S MIND). I could have stopped at three. But who would interview someone with just three theme entries?

My only alternate entry was TURN IN ONE'S GRAVE, which was what Maleska would have done if he saw the clue I had for it.

What's your background? And how did you get into crossword construction?

Strictly old school. I remember using my brother's old marbles as black squares. Not easy.

Themed puzzles are easier to make and nearly all constructors' debut puzzles are themed. But you started with a themeless on your first try, made a then-record low 20-black-square in 2001 and continue to make more themeless than themed grids. What's the special attraction of themeless?

Making a themed puzzle is a tender, loving experience. Good work if you can get it. Themeless puzzles are more -- to put it cruciverbally -- Onanistic.

What's the most proud puzzle you've made and why?

My daughter. She can't fall asleep because she has Words With Friends boards in her head.

What kind of theme and fill excite you and what kind do you try to avoid in your grids?

The only themes that excite me are the ones I haven't seen before. As for fill, I tend to favor trickery over Scrabbliness. Think SILENT I, or WENT TO BED (a past-tense phrase with -ED at the end). Wide-openness doesn't do that much for me anymore since so many people have become good at it.

As for grids, I despise partials. And the letter S in the lower right corner. I made a weekly 17x17 for two years and none of them had either of those.

What puzzles do you solve every day and which constructors constantly inspire you?

I only solve NYT Saturday and Sunday. I don't time myself, and the goal is to do them in pen without any write-overs. I used to solve more, but then I got hooked on Sudoku (and now I'm even worse with KenKen).

Inspired by? I hate all the other constructors. How DARE someone be more clever than me!

Besides crosswords, what are your other interests?

Actually, I'm not interested in crosswords at all. It's just the most surefire way to put three kids through college.

Interview with Andrea Carla Michaels

Andrea Carla Michaels is a specialist in early-week puzzle. In fact, out of 32 puzzles she constructed for the New York Times, 16 are Mondays and 5 are Tuesdays.

I've mentioned before that it's hard to make early week puzzles. The themes have to be simple but fresh. The fill have to be familiar words/phrases. It's not uncommon for constructors to re-do a section or two just to remove a word editors consider a bit too hard for Monday/Tuesday grids.

Andrea is so good at producing smooth grids with fun entries. It's obvious that she always has her fans and solvers in mind when creating crosswords. She is also one of the most bubbling, encouraging and caring constructors I've never met.

Many solvers (myself included) missed the increase in size in your "Body of Water" puzzle last Monday. Has this happened before, where solvers failed to fully grasp the subtlety or extra layer of your theme?

Um, I would say that happens in every puzzle I create! But that's ok, I throw in lots of stuff to please myself (pangrams, increase in size of water in order, putting SHMEAR over the word BAGEL). I make them for others, but thank god for the blogs, before them, I'd never have known if anyone did them, much less notice the subtle touches. I tell myself folks are appreciating them on a subconscious level ;)

Tell us a bit about your background. How did you get into crossword construction?

Been doing crosswords all my life. Started making them by putting in friend's names and making birthday puzzles. Started with making them for TV Guide and Disney Adventures, inching my way up to the NY Times about 10 years ago...and the LA Times! I try and teach others how to make them as well. Only in the past few years have I started collaborating (and now have collaborated as often as solo efforts past 5 years!) so I had to learn how to use a computer in order to share info.

What mistakes did you make when you first started constructing and what advice would you give to budding constructors?

I was unaware there were rules as to how many black squares, how many words were allowed. I would save old grids from Monday-Wed and then fit my themes into them, adding a black square here, subtracting one there...so I actually had one in the LA Times with 80 words, a total

no-no...but who knew?

How would you describe your puzzle style? What kind of theme and entries fascinate you the most?

Well, I'm definitely a Monday gal! No matter WHAT day of the week I make (I have had a few Sundays, all with partners who carried me, gridwise) they get published Mondays. So I guess my style is easy. I've been told they are smooth, light, breezy (yay blogs!) but usually they are something fun I've noticed about film titles, or taking usual clichees and finding a threesome (now foursome, as four is the new three) that work together.

Which part do you normally spend the most time on in the construction process: theme brainstorming, gridding or cluing?

My cluing has to be straightforward, as I'm a Monday gal, as I've said. So I owe a huge debt now to Crossfire that Michael Blake forced me to learn. I now scroll down and find the clue I WOULD have written and click on that. So what used to take me days to type up, I can now do in 20 minutes! So the longest time is probably spent on brainstorming, finding a perfect third phrase to go with one or two I've stumbled across. Most of it is serendipitous...so when folks ask me how long it takes me to make a puzzle, I usually say "50 years!" bec I'm drawing on things that have slowly accumulated throughout the entire time of my existence on earth!

What is the most memorable puzzle you've made and why is it so special to you?

One of my first puzzles for the NY Times, maybe it was my first puzzle? was one on Earthquakes. I had SANANDREASFAULT going across the middle with EARTHQUAKE above and AFTERSHOCK below. I asked Will (Shortz) if he could make it look like a tear ran thru

it, to have it look like an earthquake had happened. He shifted the middle squares up a tiny bit and the next ones down a little. But folks thought something was wrong with their paper and didn't do it (bec you had to solve to get it that it was supposed to look all funky) and in the electronic version, they couldn't shift the squares so it looked super straightforward and lost the zing. Also it was a dream come true to have a Sunday puzzle, and Patrick Blindauer, whom I've collaborated on many larger puzzles which have been in the NYT and the WSJ, made that happen a few times over. My favorite was to have one where there were dozens of words with the letters ANT in them. I suggested to Patrick that the black squares look like paths thru an ant farm...within hours he sent a grid with the note "Do you mean like THIS?" The man is a genius! I also love a puzzle I got all the names of the cast of GILLIGANSISLAND (running across themiddle) Will said they all had to be the real names OR the character names but couldn't mix both. As miracles would happen, GILLIGANSISLAND was 15 letters across, and six of the cast members had parallel number of letters in their names!!! There are all sorts of puzzles I've loved but that's what comes to mind.

What puzzles do you solve every day and which constructors do you find most inspiring?

I usually only do one puzzle a day, I'm sorry to say. I do the NYT. But I do the LA Times at least once a week when a friend has made it, plus it appears in my local San Francisco Chronicle. It's not a snobby thing, it's a time thing.

Besides crosswords, what are your other interests?

I'm an avid film goer (mostly foreign films and documentaries. I play a ton of Scrabble semi-professionally, sometimes I teach a class in it.

My heart is in volunteer work, I work at various soup kitchens and visit with the elderly. Many friends died young from AIDS and that is close to my heart...they are not forgotten. I try and volunteer for every day I work for $. Professionally I name companies and products, so my life is mostly words words words and trying to make the world a slightly less hungry and sad place. Not to end on such a serious note, but it's the truth! Crosswords are my true passion tho, and I'm a solver first, constructor second, tho the balance has tipped the other way of late!

Interview with David Steinberg

David Steinberg made his NY Times debut last June when he was only 14 years old, making him the second youngest constructor of the Will Shortz era, according to Jim Horne's wonderful Xword Info. He looks so sweet!

Today is only our second puzzle by David. But with his "picky" attitude, I'm sure we'll be entertained and challenged by many quality puzzles from him in the future.

First of all, thanks for putting HARMON (46D) in the grid. I'm curious, is "Long time Tiger Woods coach Butch __" your original clue? Harmon Killebrew is my all-time favorite.

You're welcome--in fact, I wasn't sure whether HARMON was famous enough when I originally decided to use it as an entry in my puzzle, since CRUCIVERB.com showed that it had only appeared three times in previous crosswords. So I asked my dad, who's a big sports fan and avid TV watcher, and he assured me that both Harmon Killebrew and Mark Harmon were very well-known. So, to answer your question, my original clue was "'NCIS' star Mark," because it seemed more contemporary. But I think Rich Norris made the clue better, more original, and a bit more Tuesday-ish.

How did this ABC embed idea come to you? What were the other theme entries you also considered?

I don't remember exactly how the idea came to me--I often think of crossword ideas at random times (at the dinner table, on the way home from school, etc.). The original version of this puzzle had the entry STAB CAESAR in it. Rich Norris initially rejected the puzzle--he liked the theme but thought STAB CAESAR was too contrived. So I wrote him back and suggested a few replacements, including CAB COMPANY, TAB CONTROL, TAB COLLARS, and DRAB COLORS. He liked CAB COMPANY and said he'd be interested in seeing a revision. I had to redo the whole grid because I couldn't come up with a good entry for ??Y?B. And that's how this puzzle came to be!

You're only 15 years old and already had 5 puzzles published by the NY Times and 2 by the LA Times. What prompted you to make your first puzzle?

I decided to try my hand at constructing crosswords after watching Merl Reagle make the process seem so amazingly simple in the documentary Wordplay. I figured that if Merl Reagle could make a puzzle so quickly, I might be able to make one too (though obviously a lot more slowly!). I made my first 10 crosswords by hand on graph paper when I was 12 and 13 because I thought using computer software was cheating. I then transferred them into grids I'd made in Microsoft Excel. It was a really complicated system, especially when I had to make changes. And putting the numbers in the Excel squares was really hard. Eventually I realized that most other constructors used computer software and that that wasn't cheating, so I bought Crossword Compiler. Looking back on my hand-constructed puzzles, I now realize they had a lot of flaws, which Will Shortz helpfully pointed out. After I switched to Crossword Compiler, I found the whole construction process a lot easier and more accessible. The hand construction did help me learn how to build my own grids, though, which I think is very valuable. All of this is how I eventually ended up where I am now!

Which part do you normally spend the most time on in the construction process: theme brainstorming, gridding or cluing?

I definitely spend the most time filling the grids--I'm very picky about what I put into my fills. I've gotten a lot pickier over time as I've seen more puzzles and read the critiques on the blogs, which make pretty clear what solvers like and what they don't. Because I am so picky, filling can take me several hours. But I think it's worth it--entries like TOM THUMB and SNOBBERY are more interesting than ones like ESNE and ANOA. As for cluing, I spend a lot of time trying to make my clues as original and clever as possible while sticking to the day of the week I'm aiming for.

What puzzles do you solve every day and which constructors constantly inspire you?

I solve the New York Times crossword every day, often the minute it's up online; the Los Angeles Times crossword in the newspaper, which we get every day (and the Sunday Los Angeles Times puzzle online or printed out); Merl Reagle's puzzle every Sunday; and the Newsday crossword in a local paper we get here. In addition, I recently subscribed to Fireball and try to solve those puzzles (often unsuccessfully--they're really hard!) every week. One constructor who constantly inspires me is Merl Reagle--it amazes me how he puts out a top-quality Sunday crossword every week! I also really admire the themeless puzzles by Barry Silk, Joe Krozel, and David Quarfoot. Kevin Der's rebuses are amazing, and Andrea Carla Michaels's early-week puzzles are always fun too.

Besides crosswords, what are your other interests?

Crosswords take up most of my life outside of school! But I'm also interested in computer science and table tennis. When I'm not working on crosswords for submission or doing homework for school, I run a custom crossword business www.customcrossword.com. I've also donated custom crosswords to help good causes.

Interview with Steven J. St. John

This is our 4th puzzle from Steven J. St. John. All his previous LA Times creations fell on Tuesdays, all with light and fun themes: from "Airline inconvenience", to "The King", to the last scrabbly "HIDDEN GEMS" with amazing theme entry intersections.

As many of you do, I always enjoy reading Steve's theme inspiration and original clues. And I hope this interview will give you a better understanding of his mind set.

What's the inspiration for this puzzle and what are the other theme entries you considered but failed to make the cut?

Looking back at my notebook, I think RAISIN DETRE was the first entry I came up with. I really liked the clue – Grape in the sun? The translated answer “Raisin to be” gives a laugh (hopefully) only after you unpack two layers – the bad translation and the life history of a raisin. I was able to brainstorm most of the other entries pretty quickly. They were all under 15-letters, so I had to decide if I wanted to take my best 4-5 and make a daily puzzle, or “go for it” and try for a Sunday.

My notebook has 11 theme answers, but I couldn’t “pair off” all of them (if you have one 8-letter answer, you need another to fit in the opposite part of the grid). So I liked, but couldn’t use PADEDEUX (Father of two?). Likewise, I had no match for MALDEMARE (Horse sickness?). With a 9-letter answer like MALDEMARE you can sometimes use it without a pair in the center of the grid, but I also had 3 11-letter entries and I wanted to save the center for one of those.

So from my initial list, I only had 9 entries I could use, and because all of the entries were fairly short (10-13 letters), I figured I needed to use all of them. That’s an uncomfortably thin margin when working a Sunday – and add to that I had never submitted a Sunday before. Imagine my surprise then when I was not only able to fill the puzzle, but that the puzzle seemed, to my eyes, to have very few iffy words (one, ADENITIS, Rich Norris would later edit out, to my appreciation). I thought it was a bit miraculous that I could fill the puzzle with no extra theme entries to spare.

Then, a couple of days later, I made a very disappointing discovery! As I started to write clues, I realized that I had somehow completely overlooked the fact that I had used two theme entries that played off of the same French root: LAISSEZFARE (Cabby gives a free ride?) in the center and SAVOIRFAIR (Mensa event?). I was stunned at my stupidity! Even though the puns are different in each case, I was pretty sure no editor would let me milk the same root word twice. Plus I knew that I had already been on every “French phrases used in English” internet list site there was and had zero acceptable ones left.

A few days later I took what I assumed to be the last look at the puzzle. It’s an unusual grid: 3 theme answers are partly stacked in the middle. (One of those, LAISSEZFARE, was one of the words that killed the puzzle, and since it was in the center there was no hope of replacing it.) Because the theme answers are also short, it occurred to me that maybe I could extract SAVOIRFAIR in the NE and save the rest of the puzzle – presuming I could come up with an alternative that happened to be 10 letters long and whose first letter makes sense with the last letter in ESPRITDECORE. I honestly don’t know where TRUMPLOEIL came from – it’s a term I first heard because my wife is a talented painter – but it struck me as a funny entry (especially with Trump all over the news – he was musing about running for President at the time) and it had some pretty friendly letters. I never in my wildest hopes thought I’d get JUJUBES and JAILCELL out of it – to think that a last-minute desperate hope theme entry actually improved the fill was just too lucky.

What's your background? What prompted you to make your first crossword?

I’m a physiological psychologist/neurobiologist. I used to do the crossword every day in my college newspaper, and later I tried to make several by hand. I found some of those first ones not long ago, and the only ones I ever completed apparently were those that broke the rules (e.g., had two letter words).

I was always more interested in making games than playing them. I spent hours as a kid making sports simulation games. In school I programmed (in BASIC and later Visual Basic) a computerized version of Yahtzee, I sent word-searches to friends in letters, I “modded” computer games like Civilization, I was the “Dungeon Master” in D&D. I used to spend days making golf courses (rather than playing them) in the Tiger Woods golf game by EA Sports.

Which part do you normally spend the most time on in the construction process: theme brainstorming, gridding or cluing?

I’m not good at generating themes. I’m trying to get better and cleverer. I think today’s puzzle is an example of where I got a bit lucky. But this is a hard question to answer because those 3 components are so different. Cluing takes a set amount of time: you’ve got about 76 words (or, for a Sunday, 140 words) you have to write clues for. It’s very rewarding to come up with a really clever clue (from a rejected puzzle of mine: DEFROSTED: Took out for dinner?), and sometimes you’ll work really hard to get some fresh clues. But it doesn’t pay to do that for all 76 words because no one would publish a puzzle that’s all misdirection like that. Also, it can be fun as a constructor to tie in the words with one another, but too much cross-referencing (Son of 24-Across) gets really annoying for the solver. So cluing takes as long as it takes – you can’t get it done faster and there’s not much profit in over-thinking it.

Gridding on the other hand can take an hour (with a computer program assisting you, of course) or weeks. If you really like a theme but have some tough letters or constraints, you may try every combination under the sun to get it to work for you. On my hard drive I have a Working Folder, and there are some puzzles that have been in there for months waiting for me to find the right combination of black squares and the right order of theme entries. Others move from the Working Folder to the Submitted Folder on the same day (or next day – I make sure to have a “cooling off period” before submitting a completed puzzle).

As for theme brainstorming, that has two parts: the jot down the idea part, which takes about 15 minutes (just enough to ensure it deserves wasting one piece of paper) and the let’s get serious and cover all the basis part, which for a linear thinker like me, can take a long time and end with disappointing results!

How does constructing change your solving experience? And what kind of themes/fill fascinate you as a solver?

I solve now with a purpose beyond just enjoying myself. I’m looking for inspiration – great words, clever ideas. If you’ve ever started a puzzle and thought you guessed the theme and then it turned out the theme was going somewhere else – well, I’m hoping for that kind of mistake. Because then maybe I can use the theme I thought of while solving!

I’m definitely most impressed by themes or ideas I know I never would have thought of, or would have thought of but never would have tried to execute because I was sure it was too hard to pull off. I love astronomy, and I could imagine coming up with the idea of hiding the names of the planets in phrases, but I never could in a million years imagine myself pulling off the planetary orbits puzzle that Patrick Berry put in my Sunday paper one day in 2008 (http://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/28/2008).

I tend to be most-impressed with pun themes that make me laugh, because in my brainstorming of theme ideas, that tends to be where I’m weakest. Again, today’s puzzle feels like a lucky break given my tendencies.

What puzzles do you solve every day and which constructors do you find most inspiring?

My paper, the Orlando Sentinel, prints the LA Times puzzle Monday through Saturday, so I do those every day. For some reason it does not print the Sunday LA puzzle, but prints the NY Times Sunday puzzle (2 weeks out of date) and Frank Longo’s syndicated puzzle. Also, the college I teach at provides the NY Times Monday-Friday during the Fall and Spring semesters, so I almost always do that one as well. Every once in a while I will download recent puzzles from the Chronicle of Higher Education and work those as well. I have submitted one puzzle there (rejected) but would someday like to publish a puzzle there.

If I see Patrick Berry or Elizabeth Gorski’s name on a puzzle, I can’t wait to start working on it. I think Merl Reagle and Frank Longo are other-worldly geniuses. Kevin Der has produced some pretty amazing puzzles, especially his Chinese Zodiac puzzle (http://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=1/30/2011) with Jessica Hui. There’s 10 or 12 others in my pantheon, including some of the themeless maestros (Manny Nosowsky et al.).

Besides crosswords, what are your other hobbies?

I love playing and watching sports and I love all things related to science, including science fiction. I wish puzzles were more sports and science friendly because I’m sure I would have a thicker theme notebook if they were. I have two smart, beautiful kids, the eldest of whom (at 10) tends to dive in to all of my interests, and she has, on more than one occasion, handed me a page full off phrases to add to my word list. She’s even generated a couple of themes (though I’m not sure we’d be able to sell SEEINGRED, FEELINGBLUE, BLUSHINGORANGE, TURNINGPURPLE, GOINGFORTHEGOLD). The kids make me smile a lot.