"'Tis the Season," by Alan Olschwang

"Holey Cow," by Gary Larson

Constructor's Comments

This is my first acceptance with the Puzzle Society Crossword, and I couldn't be more excited.  Two things I would like to mention:  1) I am not the Far Side cartoonist, and 2) no animals were harmed during the construction of this puzzle.

"Mixology," by Larry Nargi

Constructor's Comments

I like puzzles and I like cocktails, so here we are.  Although it's a fairly straightforward theme, I thought it would be fun.  Thanks, David, for being on board with that and for making some good editing suggestions to improve the fill.

"Print Issues," by Johanna Fenimore and Jeff Chen

Constructors' Comments

Johanna Fenimore:  We started out with the seed idea being "A Wrinkle in Time."  I was hoping Jeff could work his grid magic and create a visual wrinkle.  Not practical!  So we put our heads together and went in a new direction.  Similar concept with a smoothed-out approach.

Jeff Chen:  It's always a pleasure working with Johanna!

"Female Leads," by Brian Gubin

Constructor's Comments

First of all, I would like to give thanks to David for taking a look at my puzzle and deeming it worthy of publication.  I started construction for fun and am still shocked when a puzzle of mine is published.  As for this puzzle in particular, I don't exactly remember a specific moment of inspiration, but I vacillated between using LADIES FIRST or LEADING LADIES.  I went with the former and think it turned out well.  The SW of the grid probably took the longest time to fill.  I liked BASE TAN in the NW so I built around that.  I didn't want to tax the grid too much with themers but was also considering answers revolving around Lady Godiva, Lady Luck, and Lady Marmalade.  I hope everyone enjoys the puzzle.

"Golden Words," by Gary D. Schlapfer and Zhouqin Burnikel

Constructors' Comments

Gary D. Schlapfer:  I'm a retired math and science teacher based in Fremont, Nebraska.  I met C.C. a few years ago in Minneapolis, and we have been good friends since.  I now blog the Saturday puzzles for the L.A. Times Crossword Corner.  We had fun going back and forth with the theme entry selections.  We also considered HAUSFRAUEN but feared it might be a bit shaky, so we sent David the current set first.

"Thoroughly Themeless I," by Will Nediger

Constructor's Comments

This themeless started out as a themed puzzle, sort of—I constructed the top-left corner for a themed puzzle I was working on and really liked it, but I couldn't use it because YOU DO YOU duplicated the 8-Down entry, which started with the word YOU.  So I just changed 8-Down to YOUTH and repurposed it as a themeless.

"Shakespearean Shenanigans," by Jeffrey Wechsler

Constructor's Comments

One of my favorite crossword theme gimmicks is the addition of a word of three or more letters into an existing phrase to create a new (and hopefully humorous) phrase.  It's nice when a phrase presents itself unexpectedly as such a source, and THERE'S THE RUB popped into my consciousness as potential theme material.  For me, inserting three or more letters into a phrase is more interesting and challenging than adding just one or two letters—and when it works, it's quite satisfying.  I hope solvers also receive satisfaction from this puzzle.

"Outlying Areas," by John Guzzetta

Constructor's Comments

This word-that-follows type of puzzle is pretty common, but I was really hoping I could go big with six theme phrases plus the revealer.  Thanks to David for helping to smooth out clunky fill in the bottom right.  Also, here's hoping David goes with my nerdy clues for 14-Across and 53-Down!

"Steady Flow," by Bruce Venzke

"Homespun Fun," by Mark McClain

Constructor's Comments

This type of theme is known as a "chain" or "shared center."  The first and second words of each theme entry form a familiar phrase, and the second and third words also form a familiar phrase (which has nothing to do with the first phrase).  So the two outer words "share" the center word.  This type of theme is somewhat out of fashion with editors (as David mentioned to me in his acceptance message).  This one escaped rejection because it has two elements that are not always seen in such themes:  1) The theme entries are related (the first two-word phrase is a household item), and 2) the entries are humorously clued as if the whole three-word set is a thing, thus turning it into a pun, which could be considered the "subtheme" of the puzzle.

"Natural Progression," by Stu Ockman

Constructor's Comments

When you become an established constructor, friends and acquaintances begin asking if you'll work on a crossword puzzle with them.  In my case, one of those friends is Sid Kolpas, an award-winning and well-published math professor.  Sid and I have since co-constructed two crosswords appearing in Math Horizons and its sister publication Convergence:  "Mathematicians from A to Z" and "Mathematical Potpourri."

This got me thinking about whether I could construct a general-interest crossword with a mathematical theme.  And that led directly to today's puzzle.

There were a couple of stumbling blocks along the way.  I had to find a better way to hide three and five than IN THREE and FIVE-O.  Then, with David's help, we had to make everything fit into a 15x15 grid.  That meant replacing LIONESS, PIONEER, ARTWORK, and SLEIGHT OF HAND along the way.

If you enjoyed today's puzzle (and I hope you did), why not follow the links to the others above?

"Tolkien's Forest," by George Jasper

Constructor's Comments

This puzzle started out as something more than simply adding ENT to the ends of the theme entries.  I had originally hoped to tie ENT into the theme entry GIANT in the middle row as referenced in The Lord of the Rings and clued as "Like the Tolkienian forest added to the ends of 3-, 5-, 15- and 28-Down" but had some trouble incorporating acceptable surrounding fill words.

David was able to hint at the ENT theme entries by adding a very nice puzzle title that describes the sense of the puzzle without giving too much away.

"Signature Dishes," by Paul Coulter

Constructor's Comments

I'm a big fan of cooking shows, so the base phrases are all household names to me.  Hope they were familiar to solvers.  Some of the others that didn't make the cut were JAMES BEER, JAMIE OLIVE, and JULIA CHILI.  I'm glad I managed to work in SAUSAGE ROLL and COOKOUT, but I wish I could have had a food-related phrase for the other long down.  As regulars on the L.A. Times Crossword Corner blog have noted, I tend to have a lot of food items in many of my LATs.  Maybe it's because I'm usually hungry while constructing.

"Home Remedy," by Tim Schenck

Constructor's Comments

This is the longest palindrome I know of that holds together grammatically.  And David astutely observed that only MOM and DAD could suggest such a remedy!

"Show One's Stripes," by Jenna LaFleur

Constructor's Comments

Hello!  My name's Jenna, I'm currently studying linguistics at UCLA, and I'm very, very excited to be making my major-outlet crossword debut!  This puzzle has existed in one form or another for over a year, slowly progressing towards the grid you see now as I changed theme entries and reworked portions of the grid for cleaner fill.  Major thanks to Erik Agard, Amy Reynaldo, and Patti Varol for providing invaluable feedback on the puzzle in its early stages, and to David Steinberg for accepting it for publication here.  As for any comments on the theme, well, they say to write what you know.

"Flip Side," by Pam Amick KIawitter

"Change of Venue," by John Guzzetta

Constructor's Comments

I think this "playing surfaces-to-verbs" theme was one of the first I ever came up with, back in 2011 or 2012.  I found it sliding around in the bottom of a filing cabinet and decided it deserved a second look.  David wisely DQed a fifth themer that used pitch, since it's more of a Britishism for a soccer field.  These were the four that remained.

Looking again at the fill, I may have gotten a little too cutesy with the two-word phrases WHAT IF, KIND OF, LESS SO, and SING OF, but it's hard to say.  Maybe two out of four would have been better?

"Parenting 101," by J. Edward Gau

Constructor's Comments

Hello, fellow puzzlers!  I was watching the movie Tangled with the grandkids and, while listening to the song "Mother Knows Best," it reminded me of my mother, and of mothers in general, and of the great life advice that is often proffered—and often in abundance (lol).  It then occurred to me that this might be a fun theme.  I dedicate this puzzle to my wonderful mother—and to loving mothers everywhere.  I hope you enjoy it!

"Knife Skills," by Lynn Lempel

Constructor's Comments

This is a pretty common type of theme:  words that fall into the same category either starting or ending a phrase.  The trick is to use the word in a different sense.  I'd been thinking of the various terms for cutting foods, so my original title had been "Kitchen Cutups."

I'll admit that "hash" is probably iffy here.  It can be a verb but probably isn't used that way very often in the cutting-up sense.  HASHTAG was just too good a central entry to pass up.