Dear MGWCC Solver,

I hate postponing a puzzle and I loathe doing it twice in a row, but I unfortunately need to. So MGWCC #642 will go up tomorrow at noon ET.

This will not become a habit. Among other reasons, the main culprit here is that I participated in a pair of crossword talks yesterday and last Thursday with the WSJ’s Mike Miller and Mike Shenk. They were only about 50 minutes apiece but required a lot of prep time. They turned out great, but working on them Tue.-Wed.-Thu. brushed up against our Friday deadline both times. Check them out here:

Sept. 10 — discussion about standard crossword construction:

https://www.wsj.com/live-qa/wsj-live-across-and-down-with-wsj-crosswords-tricks-of-the-trade/28289635-C8B9-4A3D-A2F5-D52E940488C6?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D28150959769659868051432845788318171500%7CMCORGID%3DCB68E4BA55144CAA0A4C98A5%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1599231091

Sept. 17 — discussion about meta-crossword construction:

https://www.wsj.com/live-qa/wsj-live-across-and-down-with-wsj-crosswords-the-crossword-contest/3DB93716-636F-4CE6-8725-AC9DB8E451D6

Anyway, apologies again for the delay and we’ll be back to normal Friday posting next week. Until tomorrow’s puzzle, try the Patrick Berry meta in today’s WSJ, which I haven’t looked at yet but I’d wager it’s probably worth your time based on the byline.

https://blogs.wsj.com/puzzle/category/crossword-contest/

Until tomorrow,

Matt