Collab № 1 (Themeless w/ Matthew Stock)

PDF PUZ Solution

Happy July! VERY excited to be sharing my first ever McGrids collaboration, and with the inimitable Matthew Stock no less! I've been impressed with Matthew's consistently high quality puzzles and reputation as one of the nicest constructors out there, so it was naturally a joy to work together. I didn't make this one easy for him by sending over a particularly wide open corner, but he jumped at the challenge with some excellent gridwork, and after a lot of iteration we ended up with this feisty fiesta of a grid you see here! It's a bit of a toughie 😅

You can check out more of Matthew's puzzles on his site Happy Little Puzzles.

A note from Matthew:

So honored and excited to be a part of the first McGrids collab! I’ve been a fan of Ryan’s themelesses for as long as I’ve paid attention to bylines on crosswords, and I was stoked when he sent me the opening corner of this one as a potential collab. Ryan makes it look easy, but working these wide-open grids is so challenging (I didn’t make it any easier on us by taking out most of the helper squares Ryan sent in his initial layout). I’m super thankful for his flexibility and patience as we hammered this one into shape, and I’m really proud of what we ended up with. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks to Brooke Husic for test solving. Hope you enjoy!