My latest published crossword today...
... in that bastion of stellar journalism USA Today. The crossword is in the Tuesday, January 31/2017 paper. It's entitled "Sound Reasoning".
FYI: ALL of the new crossword constructors, including the new crossword editor Fred Piscop (who also works with the New York Times), are Democrats, and are New York Times constructors. However the puzzles, on average are easier.
FYI: the previous USAT Crossword Editor Timothy Parker, was an appalling right-wing religious fundie. He was caught plagiarizing puzzles, or parts of puzzles, from older NYT puzzles.
Nate Silver's 548 group/site help discover this, and the USA Today was forced to shit-can Parker's ass (sorry for language).
Myself and about 20 others including the new editor Fred Piscop (an accomplished blues musician, and a man of great expertise, compassion and humor) have moved in. The first thing the new editor did was to assemble a small constructor group of around 20 (including me), and triple the pay... yadda, yadda, yadda...
-Puzzler/Martin Ashwood-Smith
= new reply since forum marked as read
Always glad to come across one of your puzzles... 
http://puzzles.usatoday.com/
... ensuring that rare "crossword" words were kept out of this, and other new USAT puzzles. This is the new crossword editor's goal. His aim (and I agree with him 100%) is to try to reach out to people who often are turned off by crosswords because of weird crap (to put it mildly). Who knows, maybe even a few Red Staters who hate that "book-learnin'" stuff, may slowly open their minds. I dunno... every little bit helps I suppose 
-MAS
... I had the privilege of seeing it before it was published. It is the famous "two solution" election NYT crossword that ran in 1996 (I've been contributing to the NYT since 1990-91). If you're interested I can give you some background details. So here goes:
The initial idea of a two solution crossword (for certain theme entries) was by a math guy Jeremiah Farrell. He had come up with a similar idea/crossword (for a previous election) a few years earlier, and submited it to the then NYT Crossword Editor E.T. Maleska. However Maleska was a supporter of John Anderson (sp?) at the time and rejected the puzzle.
Farrell tried again with a similar idea in 1996, and submitted to Will Shortz. Will thought the concept was (obviously) fantastic. However (and this is not well known), Farrell was a passable crossword constructor, and didn't have the skills to sufficiently polish the puzzle, regardless of the concept. Before anyone misunderstands me, most people, unless they have had a lot of puzzles published do not have this "fine-tuning" skill. This means that there may be a few too many rare words that need to be changed.
This is not unusual, it's the editor's (Will Shortz) job to make the crossword conform to the NYT standards.
As it happened, I am and was good friends with Will's "grid doctor" at the time (I'll keep his name out of this). My "grid doctor"
friend had to make some extensive revisions. This was important because Farrell's concept was utterly brilliant, for it was essential that the puzzle be absolutely top-notch in every way. Hence, I was privileged to know in advance what was happening.
Of course, when the puzzle was published, it caused a sensation, with many people thinking for a few hours that the NYT and Will Shortz were out of their freakin' minds. Only a day later did millions of people realize they had been fooled! For as you know... the crossword claimed to predict the Clinton/Dole election, and BOTH answers worked!
Unfortunately Farrell, said later that he was unhappy with the extensive revisions. But unfortunately, in the "big leagues" they happen.
Incidentally this type of crossword single-handedly created a rare new genre of crossword. They occur occasionally and are called "Schrödinger Crosswords" in honor of the famous physicist Schrödinger, who proposed the now famous "Schrödinger's Cat" example to illustrate the unusual issues raised in the world of quantum mechanics.
Anyway... I hope some readers found the above interesting. Even though you can consider me a primary source, the above details will unlikely be publicly confirmed by Shortz.
(BTW: I would appreciate it if my written info is kept inside of DU, and not pasted elsewhere...thanks! Not that it's likely to happen )
-Martin Ashwood-Smith
Here's what mine usually end up like.
