"Free for All XXXVI," by Christopher Adams

Constructor's Comments

It shouldn't be any surprise that the seed entry for this one was SAME SEX MARRIAGE, but the rest of the grid took awhile to come together before I found the stack in the NW.  I originally only had ELENA in the grid, partially because I was more focused on finding a good stack to start.  But when I started focusing on the rest of the grid, I didn't have to think twice to go with the full name, and I'm very glad that it fit perfectly.  The rest of the grid came together nicely, and I'm somewhat proud of the BRANDYWINE/HARD CIDER overlap, even though (or, perhaps, especially because) they're not related at all.

The original grid did have an extra pair of black squares (at the I in SETI and W in WAND), which led to an overabundance of short fill outside the two main stacks, as well as perhaps a few too many Scrabbly letters.  But David's suggestion to knock out those squares resulted in better fill overall and some good long downs to boot.  He also suggested CREME EGG for 4-Down, a vast improvement over my original CREMATES; it's things like this that make me glad to work with David and very appreciative of the work he does.

Otherwise, as always, I hope you enjoyed this puzzle; if you want to get in touch, or just solve more puzzles, here's my site.

"Sunday Freestyle XXVI," by Christopher Adams

Constructor's Comments

A previous puzzle of mine (see bottom grid below) that appeared very early on in The Puzzle Society Crossword had a corner that David and I both liked but that testers found difficult.  So that corner got scrapped for that puzzle, but I figured I'd salvage it by building around it and making sure there were fair crossings.  That's now the upper left of this puzzle, and I was pleased to work in a smattering of other answers (GENE RODDENBERRY, MELODRAMA, MANCALA, CAPRESE, RHIANNON, GRIMES, etc.) that I really like and that reflect my VIBE.

Previous puzzle:

"Sunday Freestyle X," by Christopher Adams

Constructor's Comments

I don't remember too much about the construction of this puzzle, other than starting with X in all four corner squares (and generally trying to put multiple Xs in each corner, within reason).  Oh, and that David made a great suggestion on XBOX ONE X (over the original XBOX LIVE).  Looking over it again, I think it came out really well.  There's a few entries I don't like too much, but they're spread out, fairly crossed, and (I hope) worth both the Xs as well as all the other solid entries in the grid.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed the puzzle.  If you'd like to solve more of my puzzles, or if you just want to get in touch (and maybe collaborate on a puzzle!), here's a link to my site.

Editor's Comments

I think Chris did an X-cellent job with this themeless (okay, I'll admit that wasn't one of my better puns!).  I like all the X entries he chose, and I find the juxtaposition of XEROXES and XERXES particularly interesting since the two entries are just one letter apart.  Cramming a grid with rare letters like X often leads to trade-offs in the smoothness of the short fill, but Chris makes it look effortless.  Take a look at the lower left, for example.  Filling around SPACEX and XBOX ONE X is a really hard, but you'd never guess it from short fill like PUT, ALE, PAX, and UNO.  Chris even threw in an EMPANADA for good measure.  How did this puzzle go for you?