"Cheating in Class," by Evan Mahnken

Constructor's Comments

The theme idea for this puzzle came from a typo my education professor made, changing gifted students to grifted students.  By the end of the three-hour-long class, I had come up with the rest of the theme clues and mocked up a grid skeleton.  This is my first themed puzzle to be included in The Puzzle Society, but I hope it won't be the last.  Happy solving!

"What's for Dessert?" by James P. Sharp

Constructor's Comments

I'm happy I was able to integrate my favorite dessert into my favorite hobby (crossword puzzles)!

David helped me clean up some clunkiness and remove some crosswordese in the upper left.  At one point, I had ENTO at 4-Down.  David suggested I make some changes that would turn "ENTO into ONTO."  Reading those three words out loud gave me a good laugh—yes, this is the kind of thing we word nerds get a kick out of—and I happily got to work making those final changes.

I hope you all got some enjoyment from the puzzle!

"Recycled Letters," by Jake Halperin

Constructor's Comments

To me, this is a refreshing take on familiar anagram themes; I hope solvers see it the same way.  It's a pretty tight set of theme entries in that of all the words made from the letters EILT, I used all the ones that contain each letter at least once, with the exception of illite.

David encouraged me to redo my original grid, which was truly not great, and he made some masterful tweaks to this one.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, considering the amount of theme material, and I'm glad I managed to keep EXTRA LIVES and DRIVERLESS in there.

"A+," by Katja Brinck and Andrea Carla Michaels

Constructors' Comments

Katja Brinck:  I am originally from New Hampshire but now live and work in San Francisco.  I am a longtime solver, a medium crossword competitor, and have been thinking about constructing crosswords for a long time but never really knew how to get started (beyond trying to making things in an Excel spreadsheet).

In January 2018, I joined the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory, a Facebook group that was created with the intention of supporting more women and other underrepresented groups in the world of crossword construction.

Through this group, I connected with a few amazing constructors and mentors, including Andrea Carla Michaels, who also lives in San Francisco.  Shortly after connecting online, we met in person, talking about all things crosswords, and just hit it off.  After several meetings and brainstorming sessions back and forth over email on a few different ideas, I had an epiphany in the middle of the night on one entry that was 15 letters—and that started this puzzle off!

A few versions later, thanks to some great ideas and a revealer from Andrea and some very helpful feedback from David Steinberg, I'm very excited that this will be my debut puzzle.

Andrea Carla Michaels:  Katja and I became connected thru a Facebook site  (Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory) that was encouraging women to become constructors and established constructors to become mentors.  By delightful coincidence, Katja and I both live in San Francisco.

This puzzle was shaped from  one of many solid ideas Katja had that simply needed a nice reveal and a step-by-step collaboration of theme entries, layout, fill, and cluing.

With extra constructive feedback from David Steinberg that made it stronger, Katja has what is just the first of many solid crosswords to come.

I'm particularly pleased to have a witty San Francisco–centric theme entry at its core.  And I hope solvers will also give it an "A+" for overall enjoyment!

"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.

"What's Buried?" by Evan Kalish

Constructor's Comments

When you construct crosswords, you might begin to develop some interesting mental "background processes."  They might involve subconsciously parsing conversations and TV shows for crossword-friendly phrases, tallying the number of letters in said phrases, and jotting them down on paper or in your phone's Notes app.  Some of these phrases just scream "Crossword theme!"  Such was the case with RUBS THE WRONG WAY, which probably came to mind as I was petting my cat.  The letter string -SBUR- is just common enough that there were a few theme entry options available, yet uncommon enough so as not to be trivial.  The opportunity to give BOB'S BURGERS its cruciverbal debut sealed the deal!

I didn't want to include any two-word phrases wherein the -SBUR- did not span both words (like SALISBURY STEAK or SAINT PETERSBURG), which I considered a bit arbitrary for this context; this left me with no 15-letter counterpart to the revealer.  After testing some options I decided that the -SBUR- answers needed room to breathe—featuring just three entries led to a more satisfying puzzle in terms of fill.  I'm glad David was willing to let me change up the normal layout!

"The Royal Court," by Chris King

Constructor's Comments

This was a fun one to put together, and the key was 36-Across is a nice 15-letter entry.  I'm also partial to 46-Across, as that two-word phrase is a part of the wonderful exchange seen here:

This was a nice, clean puzzle, and I hope you, the solver, enjoyed it and maybe learned something new.  I want to thank David for publishing my very first major outlet puzzle.

Also, if you want to see more of my brand of things, I have a blog at Chris Words with a whole backlog.  I've heard some like it.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!