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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Pressed for Time” by Erik Agard
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is how some crosswords are written.
Answer: LAST-MINUTE, found by 575 solvers, of which 542 were solo

Lovely piece of suitably last-minute work from the great Erik Agard last week. Was it so late because A) he agreed to do the puzzle months ago but dilly-dallied until the last minute or B) I accidentally forgot to commission a Week 1 and Erik came thru like a champ in a pinch? I’ll never tell!

OK, OK — so maybe it was B)…

Five theme entries in this hourglass figure need their last two letters jammed into one square:

VIO(LA)/THRIL(LA)
EA(ST)/EGOBOO(ST)
DORE(MI)/MIA(MI)
KEA(NU)/NEW ME(NU)
AN(TE)/SLA(TE)

Taken in the usual grid order (or as the sands fall in an hourglass, you might say), they spell out our contest answer. Pro touch: each of these pairs ends both of their grid entries, reinfocing the “last minute” theme.

Thanks, Erik!

GUEST CONSTRUCTOR MONTH, PUZZLE #2:

Batting second this month is Quiara Vasquez. Quiara is an artist and writer whose work as a puzzlemaker you’ve seen in all the regular places (NYT, USA Today, blah blah blah) and some of the weirder ones, including as an editor for AVCX (which is open for submissions now until the end of the month) and Crucinova (which is coming off a job-hunt-induced hiatus and going back to regular weekly puzzles later this month). If you liked this grid, there’s more like it on her blog QVXwordz.

Thanks, Quiara! On to the meta…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a heroic group.

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