It's a rare to lose, let alone completely forget, a double-quadstack crossword. But this is exactly what happened.
So this double-quadstack crossword is making its debut here, as a bonus (quadstack) puzzle intended to accompany our Friday, July 22, 2016 New York Times quadstack crossword.
We were recently interviewed by Wolf Shortzer of the CNN (Crossword Network News), headquartered in Martinetta, Georgia. Here is a short excerpt:
Q: So how did this crossword get lost?
A: We don't quite know, but our best guess is that we both must have been distracted at the time, either by another crossword, or by the Sudanese World Tic-Tac-Toe Tournament that we both attended.
Q: So how did it get found?
A: By spending weeks sifting through older crossword files.
Q: Do you have any other comments?
A: Yes, keen-eyed solvers may notice that this (previously unpublished) double quadstack crossword has a grid with 16x15 dimensions, instead of the more usual 15x15. We opted for this grid layout, with an extra row, to open up the center of the crossword. Our aim was to (hopefully) make this grid more interesting, because we could use longer answer words in the center of the puzzle.
Q: It seems to me that you're not in the puzzle biz for the big BUX. That's a "word" not found in standard dictionaries.
A: Would you have preferred if this puzzle SUX? That would only make the solver SORER.
Q: Do you have any other comments?
A: Yes, we do. Happy Solving!
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