Constructor: Hanh Huynh Relative difficulty: Easy (after you get the trick) THEME: HOLY COW (61A: "Wow!" ... or a phonetic hint to this puzzle's theme) — the letter string "COW" appears three times inside longer answers; each time, the letters in "COW" are separated by circled squares which represent "HOLE"s—those squares are literal holes (i.e. empty space) in the "COW" answers (so that you get a bunch of "hole-y COWs"!), but actual letters ("H,O,L,E") in the Down crosses: The "hole"-y COWs: SC O WL (14A: Dirty look) SIMON C O WELL (21A: Longtime judge on "Britain's ..read more

Constructor: Jeffrey Martinovic Relative difficulty: Medium THEME: LATERAL SYMMETRY (62A: Feature of this puzzle's grid and the answers to the six starred clues) — both the grid and the indicated answers have lateral (mirror) symmetry along a vertical axis  Theme answers: MAUI, HAWAII (3D: *Home to Haleakala National Park) "WAIT, WHAT?" (4D: *"Hold on, repeat that?") "MWAHAHA!" (45D: *[Evil laugh]) MAXIMUM (46D: *Calculus calculation) "MAMMA MIA!" (10D: *Musical whose name is an Italian exclamation) HOITY-TOITY (11D: *Highfalutin) Word of the Day: WEST ELM (4A: Furniture ..read more

Constructor: Judy Bowers Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (Easy in general, but parsing a couple of those theme answers was tricky) THEME: TWO (54D: Number of letters in every word of the answers to the starred clues — that's it; that's the theme: Theme answers: "OH NO, EW, HE IS MY EX" (16A: *"Yuck! I've dated him before. Swipe left!") "SO, IS IT / UP TO ME?" (23A: *With 42-Across, "Well, do I decide or not?") "DO AS WE DO" (32A: *"Follow our lead!") "HI, MA. I'M UP" (37A: *"Morning, mother!") "OK IF WE GO IN ON IT?" (52A: *"Can this be a gift from all of us?") Word of the Day: IR ..read more

Constructor: David J. Kahn Relative difficulty: Very easy (Downs-only) THEME: From COAL to WIND — for Earth Day ... a word ladder, with a few extra climate change-related theme answers The ladder: COAL (1A: *Nonrenewable energy source ... and the start of an eight-step word ladder) COOL  WOOL WOOD (35A: *Energy source whose production contributes to 36-Across) FOOD (39A: *Energy source whose production contributes to 36-Across) FOND FIND WIND (64A: *Renewable energy source ... and the end of the word ladder) Theme answers: GREEN POWER (18A: Sustainably produced electricity) G ..read more

Constructor: Michael Schlossberg Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging Instructions: BEFORE you follow the instructions... And AFTER THEME: "Get Cracking" — see instructions, above; basically, there is no theme, from a solving standpoint. Once you've finished the grid, you rotate some squares and you get a message that spells out JACKPOT Theme answers: no, there are none of these Word of the Day: SOLAR PUNK (111A: Speculative fiction subgenre that imagines a sustainable energy future) — Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement th ..read more

Constructor: Garrett Chalfin and Andrew Kingsley Relative difficulty: Medium for the most part, but Challenging in one particular area THEME: none  Word of the Day: NAZCA LINES (30D: Mysterious ancient geoglyphs in the Peruvian desert) — The Nazca lines (/ˈnɑːzkə/, /-kɑː/) are a group of geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were created between 500 BC and 500 AD by people making depressions or shallow incisions in the desert floor, removing pebbles and leaving different-colored dirt expose ..read more

Constructor: Kate Hawkins Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging THEME: none  Word of the Day: OMNI (38A: Onetime magazine that covered science fiction) — Omni was a science and science fiction magazine published for domestic American and UK markets. It contained articles on science, parapsychology, and short works of science fiction and fantasy. It was published as a print version between October 1978 and 1995. The first Omni e-magazine was published on CompuServe in 1986 and the magazine switched to a purely online ..read more

Constructor: David Kwong Relative difficulty: Medium [sorry about all the blue eyes in the grid—I shut my puzzle before taking a screenshot so I refilled the grid with "Reveal All" rather than type it all in again] THEME: A STAR IS BORN (A STAR IS "B" OR "N") (63A: Thrice-remade movie ... or, when parsed as six words, a hint to the theme clues in this puzzle) — theme clues all start with stars (asterisks), which you have to imagine as either "B"s or "N"s in order to make sense of the clues: Theme answers: ELECTION DAY (17A: *Allot time) (Ballot) MOTHER OF PEARL (23 ..read more

Constructor: Joseph Gangi Relative difficulty: Medium? Medium-Challenging? Probably depends on your familiarity with the story... THEME: ONE EYE (73A: Feature of 20-Across ... and, when sounded out, a feature of today's puzzle (clues and all!)) — the "theme" is POLYPHEMUS, a (not "the"!) cyclops in the ODYSSEY, whose "eye" Odysseus puts out. There is an awkward and gruesome representation eye-gouging in the NW, where MAIM goes right through the puzzle's (and POLYPHEMUS's) only "I" ("eye"), which is the first word in the imagined (humorous?) exclamation, "I CAN'T SEE!" Oh, and the ..read more

Constructor: Amanda Winters Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Monday) (solved Downs-only) THEME: AS ABOVE / SO BELOW (39A: with 41-Across, philosophical principle in which Earth mirrors heaven ... or a hint to the shaded squares) — bunch of ASSO squares (top two letters "AS," bottom two letters "SO") Word of the Day: ASIAN PEARS (3D: Yellow fruits that, despite their name, look more like apples) — Pyrus pyrifolia is a species of pear tree native to southern China and northern Indochina that has been introduced to Korea, Japan  ..read more