| TONIMORRISON | "The best American writer? The author of 'Beloved,' if you ask me." |
| EDGARALLANPOE | American writer: "The Raven" (5,5,3) |
| MORRISON | Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Sula (8) |
| ANAISNIN | Delta of Venus is an erotic novel by which French-born American writer? (5,3) |
| TARBELL | Did an old sailor have to ring an American writer? (7) |
| DICKENS | A writer? The heck he was! |
| POETASTER | Inferior versifier, one sampling American author? (9) |
| HAWTHORN | May cut American author? Not from what we hear |
| THEMES | Topics? The writer is engaged in most of the current ones |
| BIRO | For a writer, the point of it all is to get the ball at the point. (4) |
| OPTIMISM | Work beginning to thrill? The writer's repeatedly nursing source of some hope |
| JIVE | Jack the writer's the talk of Harlem (4) |
| ASCRIBES | Attributes to a writer the start of the scriptures (8) |
| HELP | Emma Stone drama about race relations as seen through the eyes of an aspiring author, The ___ (4) |
| SODOR | Island setting of the Railway Series books by English author the Rev. W. Awdry (5) |
| SPITEFUL | "124 was ___. Full of a baby's venom" (opening lines of "Beloved") |
| ELOPEMENT | It appeals to a couple of beloved runners getting away for the match (9) |
| PAELLA | Friend rings second best American city from kitchen in Madrid (6) |
| MEATY | Offering a lot? The writer's about to dine |
| NINE | Square number unspecified? The writer's dismissing 1,000 (4) |
