WSJ (Contest) Grid: 10 minutes; Meta: 10 minutes 
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Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Form Letters” — Conrad’s writeup.
This week we’re looking for an eight-letter word. There were no obvious theme entries, but Mike left a clue in his customary final horizontal entry: IRS, clued as Initial letters on some forms.
WSJ Contest – 04.05.2026
I initially searched for IRS in the grid and found no signal. I noted a few weird clues (such as “It really smells”) while solving, so I focused on the clues. There were eight three-letter clues with each word beginning with I R S:
- 1d FED: Interest rate setter
- 13a IMUS: Irreverent radio star
- 22d NAAN: Indian restaurant serving
- 30d AMANA: Iowa religious society
- 35a NOSE: It really smells
- 43a CRETAN: Iraklion resident, say
- 44a ECHO: Identical response, sometimes
- 55d STP: Indy racer sponsor
The first letters of the entries with IRS clues spell our contest solution FINANCES. Solvers: please share your thoughts. I’ll end with a non-thematic song that I love.
Mike is a next-level genius! Fun puzzle with a very satisfying click, once I discovered the mechcanism!
I had just finished doing my taxes when I started this meta, so it was smooth sailing. Nice one, Mike.
I thought IRS was a signal to look for other initialisms in the puzzle. When I found eight of them, I figured that had to be the mechanism. Sadly, I couldn’t find anywhere to go from there.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4 stars
That’s exactly the path I initially followed. When I saw that wasn’t going anywhere, I asked a friend and he suggested looking at 1A closely. Then the lightbulb came on.
Applause for another work of neat craftsmanship by Mr Schenk
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4.5 stars
I was briefly distracted by seven entries that consisted of initials and an eighth with an abbreviation:
34A HMO
38A DNA
56A OPEC
58A PG UP
6D ORS
25D R AND D
46D AWOL
55D STP (which, BTW, originally stood for “Scientifically Treated Petroleum”)
Fortunately, I couldn’t make anything out of those entries. Then, I noticed [Iraklion resident, say] and I knew I had the mechanism.
I’m happy that my months-long slump of WSJ meta failures is finally over.