"Autumn Leaves"!

It's official: I am now a Best Crosswords contributor! "Autumn Leaves" was published today, and I'm really looking forward to stats and feedback! From what I've seen, the site has a significant following. You can solve the puzzle yourself, either by following the link here or printing the image below.

The rest of this post will discuss puzzle highlights, so beware of RAMPANT SPOILERS AHEAD.

All right, let's get to it.

First off, a straightforward Monday theme, with long Across entries highlighting the progression of leaves in fall, from GREEN BERET to YELLOWSTONE to ORANGE CRUSH to DEAD RINGER. I'm both new at crosswords and a big believer in clean fill, so to keep my grid flexible and full of possibilities, I kept to the standard minimum of 42 theme squares (in the classic 10/11/11/10 setup, no less!), and the maximum word count of 78. I'd encourage any fellow rookies to check out Nancy Salomon's article for aspiring constructors, where she warns against over-ambitiousness. No shame in a 78-word puzzle!

Yellowstone is definitely the odd man out here, seeing as every other theme entry is two words. In retrospect, I probably should've gone with YELLOW PAGES, although it doesn't look right to me without the "The." I'm gonna let myself slide because, space or no, we all know how to parse Yel Lowstone. Oh, my bad.

On the topic of our national parks, lots of inadvertently patriotic material in this puzzle, with AMERICANA, UNCLE SAM, and Presidents TAFT and IKE! Also GITMO, though "patriotic" may not be the best word there.

I'm happy with the long bonuses on the right side of my puzzle as well, with OH, I FORGOT and a particularly mean clue for SNL HOSTS. This is another advantage of having mostly clean fill: A lot less guilt peppering in an evil misdirect in an early-week puzzle, as long as most all the crossings are simple.

My cluing of RAKED was both to add a bit of theatre lingo for my own personal enjoyment, and to avoid referencing leaves or autumn anywhere outside the theme. To me, keeping the theme and fill distinct is an extension of checking for dupes in the grid: Make sure everything feels clean.

Glad I was able to sneak in an AJAX. I love to include rare letters when I can, but I'm not going to force it. Fun Fact: At the time I write this, TREJO has yet to debut in the New York Times crossword puzzle, and doesn't appear to be part of any puzzle in any major crossword outlet, according to Crossword Tracker! Somebody needs to give my man Danny Trejo some love: He didn't absolutely kill it in Spy Kids for this level of disrespect!

Not a big fan of SLIER or OILER, but they're easy enough to figure out, and a perfectly acceptable price for snagging four long bonuses in my book. I hope you enjoyed the puzzle, and I look forward to publishing more!