Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 76 of my contest. If you’re new to the contest and would like to enter, please see the site FAQ on the left sidebar for instructions.

LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

That wasn’t very hellish, was it? 269 solvers found the right direction last week, correctly submitting EAST as the contest answer word.

The top three theme entries were famous people to whose first name you can add a direction (or two) to make a U.S. state: CAROLINA HERRERA (South/North), VIRGINIA WOOLF (West), and DAKOTA FANNING (South/North). The last theme entry, HAVE NO DIRECTION, nudges the solver in the same — well, in the same direction. Only one missing is EAST.

Many solvers (first was Chip Van Kirk) noticed how clever it was of me to have the contest answer word also be the first word in the clue to 1-across. Truly clever or simply serendipitous? I’d rather not say.

Last week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 269 correct entries submitted, is Frank Colangelo of Murrysville, Penna. Frank has selected as his prize an autographed copy of Sit & Solve Commuter Crosswords.

THREE THINGS:

1) DON’T WAIT UNTIL FRIDAY:

Did you know? You don’t have to wait until Friday to find out the answer to MGWCC. Every Tuesday at noon ET — right as the contest deadline arrives — Joon Pahk does a write-up of MGWCC which reveals the previous week’s solution. You can find Joon’s commentary at the Crossword Fiend website, which is here:

http://crosswordfiend.blogspot.com/

2) DELAY OF GAME (PRIZES):

Slight delay in sending out Hell Month prizes — they’re all going out on Monday. That box of MGWCC notepads wasn’t as full as it looked and I had to order more.

3) ANOTHER PALIN PUZZLE:

No Palin-dromes in this crossword, but still funny.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is five letters long. E-mail it to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon ET. Please put the contest answer in the subject line of your e-mail.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite download the free software here, then join the Google Group (952 members now!) here.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.