WSJ (Contest) Grid: 30 minutes; Meta: 20 more 
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Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “A Quarter of the Way There” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week Matt told us We’re 25% of the way through the 21st century! The answer to this week’s contest crossword is a fitting 18-letter message from the future. The grid was tough for me, a sure sign that the meta mechanism was grid-based.
There were two long horizontal entries, but no obvious potential theme entries beyond those. I spun my wheels for a bit, focusing on quarter and Matt’s very specific 18-letter prompt. The two long entries had 12 letters (4 x 3). There were also two 8-letter entries (4 x 2), and eight 4-letter (4 x 1) entries. That added up to 18 letters in evenly divisible quarters. I was briefly delayed when I focused on the first quarter (forming ODISROSC…) and shifted to the second quarter. Here are the second quarters of each 4, 8, and 12-letter grid entry, in bracketed grid order:
WSJ Contest – 01.04.2026
- O[H]IO
- DIS[APP]OINTED
- RO[YA]LIST
- S[P]EC
- C[R]UD
- K[I]SS
- B[L]AB
- O[F]IT
- B[O]AZ
- AP[OL]OGIA
- ONE[SDA]RNDEST
- A[Y]ER
The second quarters spell our contest solution HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY, which starts the second quarter of the year. Fun construction by Matt, with a fitting solution. Solvers, please share your thoughts.
I got as far as ODISROSC…
I wonder if anyone submitted that just for fun.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4 stars
Me, too! So close, yet so far away.
Me three…
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
Genius through and through, from the meta itself to the meta answer.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
“Dang, do I read the squares top to bottom or left to right?? ODISRO isn’t very promising.
Oh, wait… APP could be part of HAPPY… What’s the second letter at the top?? Ah, ‘oHio’. Ah, OK…”
Off to the races!
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 5 stars
I got a nice chuckle at the solution. That alone justifies rating this a 5 star puzzle. Well done Matt!