| SUETOWNSEND | Author whose best-known character’s first name was Nigel until her publisher decided to avoid confusion with another fictional schoolboy |
| GREEDYGUTS | Guzzler decided to avoid opening variable bottle |
| NABOKOV | Vladimir _, Russianamerican author whose best-known work was his 1955 novel Lolita (7) |
| HELENFIELDING | Author whose best-known character first appeared in an anonymous column in The Independent in 1995 |
| JONG | Author whose best-known work begins "There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them" |
| BATES | Author whose best-known novels include Love for Lydia, The Darling Buds of May and My Uncle Silas (5 |
| GOGOL | Nikolai ___, Russian author whose best-known works are The Government Inspector and Dead Souls |
| DEEPING | Warwick ___, prolific English novelist and short story writer whose best-known novel was Sorrell and Son |
| THOMASNASHE | Elizabethan author whose best-known work is "The Unfortunate Traveller" |
| RUTHPARK | New Zealand?born Australian author whose best-known works are the novels The Harp in the South and Playing Beatie Bow |
| JEAN | French author whose best-known works are the 1929 novel Les Enfants terribles and the 1934 play La Machine infernale (4,7) |
| COCTEAU | French author whose best-known works are the 1929 novel Les Enfants terribles and the 1934 play La Machine infernale (4,7) |
| CHANDLER | Detective-story writer whose best-known work is The Big Sleep (7,8) |
| RAYMOND | Detective-story writer whose best-known work is The Big Sleep (7,8) |
| RABELAIS | Francois ___, French Renaissance writer whose best known work is Gargantua and Pantagruel |
| ARSHAD | Comic timing genius and genuine friend to Sanjay Dutt, known as Circuit in 'Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.'(first name) (6) |
| KELLY | Jerry Maguire actress who was married to John Travolta from 1991 until her death last month (5,7) |
| PRESTON | Jerry Maguire actress who was married to John Travolta from 1991 until her death last month (5,7) |
| STAPLETON | John ___, English journalist and TV presenter who was married to Lynn Faulds Wood until her death in 2020 |
| COSMO | Women's magazine, familiarly (or Kramer of "Seinfeld"'s first name!) |
