PUZZLE MONDAY – It’s debut season and college graduating students usually find myriad ways to celebrate. Some are finding new and unusual ways to party. Others do crossword puzzles that get published in the New York Times.

Well, at least Alexander Liebeskind does.

Mr. Liebeskind made his New York Times Crossword debut in December, and his second puzzle is in the works just weeks after graduating from Columbia University in computer engineering.

Now he has to venture into the professional world, where everything is…well, you’ll see once you solve his riddle.

About the builder

“Today’s puzzle idea was a happy accident,” Liebeskind said in an email. “When I found the theme, I was sitting on a plane with no internet, spinning sentences in my head. Once I became fascinated with 37-Across, it was all about the implementation.”

“Given that I graduated from college in the last few weeks,” he continued, “the timing of posting seems particularly appropriate.”

Crossword editor Will Shortz called Mr. Liebeskind’s puzzle “a classic example of a New York Times Monday crossword.”

“The theme is simple yet elegant,” Mr. Shortz said. “Each of the long answers conveys the theme in a different way. There’s probably nothing in the whole puzzle that an average Times reader doesn’t know. At the same time, the vocabulary is not trivial and there are not too many proper nouns. And there is not a single partial sentence.

“Overall, Monday puzzles don’t get much better than this,” he added.

Today’s theme

The typical Monday puzzle has four theme entries, but Mr. Liebeskind has packed five into his grid if you count the reveal at 37-Across, giving solvers a clue about the theme.

All theme entries begin with the syllable “new” using different spellings, and the telltale is right on point: the answer to the clue “A fresh start…or, when said aloud, this that 18-, 23-, 53-, and 58-through all?is a NEW BEGINNING.It’s something Mr. Liebeskind can certainly relate to.

At 18-Across, the answer to the “Hazelnut candy offer” clue is UNOGAT BAR. Similarly, at 23-Across, the answer to “Ultradense Galactic Body” is NUDETRON STAR, which uses a different spelling of the syllable.

tricky clues

As Mr. Shortz noted, the clues in Mr. Liebeskind’s puzzle are mostly straightforward, though he does use some fun puns. Here are a few that stand out.

66A. The answer to “It’s catchy” is TRAP. While the clue sounds like someone commenting on a piece of music, the “it is” refers to the answer. Traps are “catchy” things.

1D. “Intel employee?” it sounds like we’re supposed to think of someone who works for Intel Corporation, but that clue quickly draws us in. We have to parse it a bit differently and read it as “Someone who employs information at work”. The answer is SPY.

11D. I admit, I laughed at this one. A “Kind of Phone on the Alabama Coast?” is a MOBILE phone, which is a play on the name of the port city of Mobile, Ala.

26D. The reasoning behind this index is similar to that behind 66A. As alarming as “It’s not good!” sounds, the answer is SPOILED, because the clue is not a cry for help; it refers to something – most likely food – that is “not good”.

Want to submit a crossword puzzle to The New York Times?

The New York Times Crossword has an open submission system, and you can submit your puzzles online.

For tips on how to get started, read our “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle” series.