Aidan Deshong author page
3 puzzles by Aidan Deshong
with Constructor comments
See the 12 answer words debuted by Aidan Deshong.
| B | T | S | M | I | L | L | E | T | A | N | C | H | O | ||
| L | O | W | E | L | A | I | N | E | B | O | O | T | H | ||
| U | N | E | M | I | X | E | D | R | E | S | U | L | T | S | |
| S | E | E | Y | O | U | U | M | A | R | E | P | O | |||
| H | I | T | O | R | M | I | S | S | R | B | I | ||||
| T | I | D | Y | L | E | E | F | I | S | C | A | L | |||
| I | D | E | A | C | O | W | A | U | T | H | O | R | S | ||
| S | O | P | P | A | S | S | A | B | L | E | N | I | A | ||
| T | W | I | D | D | L | E | B | U | S | E | A | S | T | ||
| O | N | E | W | A | Y | W | E | T | B | A | R | T | |||
| I | S | P | I | T | S | J | U | S | T | O | K | ||||
| A | T | T | N | S | A | G | D | R | Y | I | C | E | |||
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| R | E | P | L | Y | O | L | E | A | T | O | T | A | N | ||
| A | S | S | E | T | N | E | A | T | E | N | S | T | U |
Oren: Hey there! I'm Oren, a freshman at Columbia University studying physics. This is my first-ever puzzle, and I'm thrilled to see it featured in The New York Times! Aidan and I are friends from high school, and it was so fun to collaborate with him. I texted him that MIXED would be an apt review of a bartender, and from there, we immediately started bouncing ideas off each other.
I've solved countless crossword puzzles, but designing one was an entirely new and challenging experience. At times, filling in the grid and coming up with creative clues felt like a puzzle in itself! I hope you enjoyed solving it as much as we enjoyed making it.
Aidan: Oren was one of my closest friends in high school, and I'm beyond thrilled to share a byline with him! We spent a lot of our free time in 12th grade solving old Friday and Saturday themelesses together, so there's nobody else I'd rather make a puzzle with. Except possibly LeBron James.
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Aidan Deshong: It's nice to be back on XWord Info, especially when it's Jacob's debut!
We were hunting down theme entries from April to September. Here are my favorites among the others we found that didn't make the cut:
- SPRINGFIELD [Motown?]
- BIRMINGHAM [Allocation?]
- BEAVER [Orbiter?]
- PEACHES [Galoot?]
- HARRY TRUMAN [Modem?]
- JARED POLIS [Cogent?]
…and, as Evan Birnholz pointed out, HEAD OF STATE would make a great revealer. FIRST PLACE would also be good.
Back soon…
Jacob Reed: I'm so excited to be making my NYT debut today, especially with a puzzle that was extremely fun to make with Aidan. I love puzzles, and first got excited about constructing when Caleb Madison started a crossword program at BuzzFeed. I hit him up (perhaps too aggressively?) on the company Slack, and he gave me some pointers and referred me to Patrick Berry's Crossword Constructor handbook. I read it cover to cover and then... did nothing for nine years. Well, that's not entirely true. I did put "submit a crossword puzzle to NYT" on my list of goals each year. Finally, in December 2023, while trying to cross one more thing off my resolution list, I found an online crossword community and, in two weeks, made about twenty not-ready-for-prime-time puzzles. This was actually my third acceptance by the NYT crossword wizards, but Thursdays are often my favorite puzzles to solve, so it's fitting that this'll be the first one to run.
I come from an improv background. In improv, you know a game (or the gimmick of a scene) is clear and fun when everyone on stage jumps in and wants to contribute. That's how Aidan's idea for this theme felt to me. It's a novel device that he should get full credit for. Once I saw [Hiking?] for KAMEHAMEHA, all I wanted to do was pitch alts. I'm thrilled he let me jump in the mix with him on this. Thanks also to John, Boaz, Spencer, Quiara, Kelsey, Evan, and many others who were helpful and supportive during my first few months on the crossword construction chat.
Here are a few... stretchier... themers that didn't make their way in:
- MICKEY EARS [Flat tire?]
- ZATARAINS [Lazing?]
- LOGAN CIRCLE [Paring?]
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| E | T | H | E | R | S | S | Y | N | E | R | G | Y |
Hi! I'm a high school senior graduating next Friday and turning 18 a few days after, so this is a very exciting time for me all around. I will be at Harvey Mudd next fall—but believe it or not, this is not the first NYT crossword made by a then-incoming freshman at Harvey Mudd. (The first ran in 2021.) I'm just here to continue the tradition.
I started with the grid shape, and got lucky by finding a solid center early on. I tried to incorporate as many fresh-but-accessible tech terms as possible, at least one per corner. When the M and S in the left middle lended themselves to MS PAINT, I knew I had to finish the grid. It was actually Christina Iverson of the NYT team who filled the bottom left after I just couldn't get it all the way—thank you, Christina! And thanks to everyone else for solving!