Throwback

Tuesday's puzzle from Jay Leatherman, as I was doing it, reminded me of the days of crosswording before I started doing puzzles. I think this is his second puzzle (his first being a friday) and while it has contemporary theme entries, there are some totally crosswordese words in it. Here are some pretty out there entries I'm surprised at:

Asian goat - TAHR
Persian governers - SATRAPS
Rhone Tributary - ISERE
Lecherous sort - ROUE
Nucleic acid sugar - RIBOSE

And the theme entries are pretty good though (QUITDAYDREAMING, DONTBESONAIVE, GETREAL, ENOUGHALREADY, COMEDOWNTOEARTH). Which makes me so surprised the two mix kinds of crossword puzzles mix at all.

Can it be?

So soon? After so many months of puzzling, my first puzzle will be appearing in the LA Times (10/10) today. This was a puzzle I was skeptical could be sold anywhere because it's theme is not someone one would associate with crosswords, but good because the themes crossed. It makes you wonder whether was really is that many instances of it that crossing themes could occur. When I tell my friends what it's about, they're not surprised because it is very LA. So hop over to the LA times and find this debut of mine.

I have to say, I was really surprised by how fast the turnaround with Rich Norris is. More surprised is how quick he was able to put it in print. With the NY Sun, there was a 4 month queue, so when Rich told me it would be a month down the line. It made me quite happy. There's another one coming out this month too.