"Sunday Freestyle XXVII," by Evan Mahnken

Constructor's Comments

Hello, solvers!  I'm Evan Mahnken, a student at Brandeis University, and I'm excited to be making my Puzzle Society debut!

My seed entry for this themeless was MRS ROBINSON.  I thought of the clue [Character whose lover was shot through the leg?] and just had to build a puzzle around it.  (As of the time of my writing this, I don't know if that clue survived, but I really hope it did.)  If you've never seen The Graduate, I highly recommend it.

This was also my first foray into the themeless grid type with stairstep patterns on either side of the middle three rows.  I'm quite happy with the quality of the fill, just not with the amount of black squares it took to get that quality of fill.

Big thanks to David for his help in perfecting the fill around the edges and for telling me I ought to send some puzzles his way at this year's ACPT.  Happy solving!