"Allow me to introduce..."

[MikeyG]

I do my best to read a lot of books every year, and one thing that amazes me is how many outstanding debuts there are.

That applies to this puzzle. This was an exceptional effort regardless, let alone for a first-time. Clean fill, great cluing, and a nice metanism. Bravo!

[ajk]

Wednesday morning update:
40. Cinny
41. Streroto
42. Eric Porter
43. ReB
44. Anita and Steve
45. Mikey G

Even allowing for the fact that some of these might be muggles/crosshare duplicates, a gratifying list. Let's see if anyone out there needs a little more help (and again I'm always happy to provide additional help via PM).

Wednesday Nudges
Meta puzzle titles are often more literal than you think.

Five symmetrically placed grid entries need introductions.

So now you have 5 new words. What to do with those? Did any of them pop into your head while you were filling the grid?

OK, you found the five new entries whose clues match the introduced words. How might you get letters from those?

But now you have 5 letters of gibberish, right? What if you apply the mechanism one more time...

[jenirvin]

Started the other day, but just got back to it. I can confirm I'm off the couch (without nudges, but the early nudges did confirm I was looking at the correct path). Kudos to you!

[DrTom]

Spectacular introductory puzzle from which to reach the shore; if they get any better than this we will have a new crossword columnist. Enjoyed the new "voice" in the clueing and waiting until the next one which I hope will not be far behind. We are creating quite a bunch of constructors. Mssrs Shenk and Gaffney best watch their back!

[JeanneC]

Great meta! Took me three days and the nudges to solve but finally got it! Loved every minute of it, too.
This was a first effort? Can’t wait to see what the future holds.

[Dow Jones]

Nudged off the couch. This was an outstanding meta, Alan. Next time, you won't need an introduction !!

[ajk]

Thursday update, and a steady trickle of additional solvers. Updates might get a bit more sporadic from here as I'm traveling starting this evening. But as usual please let me know if you spot any errors.

47. jenirvin
48. bhamren
49. Tom Wilson
50. DrTom
51. Jaclyn
52. david
53. michaelm
54. DebbieC
55. JeanneC
56. Dow Jones
57. THC
58. Johnny Luau

[hoover]

Wow, excellent debut! The metanism was as smooth as any of the M's.

[cbarbee002]

OTC. Needed the nudge.

[mkmf]

Submitted. Needed the early nudges. I almost had it without them, but I had an annoying yet somewhat comical blind spot that got in the way.

Looking forward to more of these!

[Darth]

Nice puz! Hope you'll do more! :D

[ajk]

Final leaderboard update (assuming I didn't miss anyone) before the reveal:
59. hoover
60. jbird
61. cbarbee002
62. mkmf
63. Steve M
64. Tane
65. Darth

[ajk]

The meta answer is MEETING.

The title (read literally) suggests adding ME onto the front of certain words ('introducing' them). Which words? 63A suggests looking at the edges, and indeed the symmetric quartet of words in the corners will each take a 'ME' to become a new word: METIER, MELEE, MEANT, MEREST. Scanning the rest of the grid, we also find THANE smack in the middle, which can become METHANE. So five new words symmetrically disposed around the grid. Must be right.

What next? Well, each of those new words is also an answer to one of the other clues in the puzzle:
METIER = 19A "Specialty, in a way"
MELEE = 24A "Vigorous struggle"
METHANE = 55A "A small hydrocarbon, for example" (which maybe seemed like a suspiciously specific clue for GAS?)
MEANT = 41D "Intended to suggest"
MEREST = 52A "Only a little bit"

Ok, so the five new words have led us to five new other grid entries. The first letters of those are ETGIN. Huh. Gibberish.

Oh, let's put them in grid order! ETING. Ah. Still gibberish. Disappointing.

But...if we do one last introduction we get MEETING! Bingo.

Thanks once again for all the very kind words about this initial effort. Apologies for the stray red herrings that wandered in, all of which were totally accidental I swear!

[aschuchert]

I’m VERY late but please count me as a solve!!!

This was awesome. Thanks for sharing, thank you for the nudges, thank you for always responding to my rambling texts sent at 3am. The meta skills you’ve imparted upon me are treasured.

Cheers!