| POTAGE | Soup label collected by US writer (6) |
| MACBETH | British gong collected by US subject -- that's tragic! (7) |
| STICKERS | Adhesive decorative labels collected in an album as a hobby (8) |
| LESSSALT | Soup-label phrase |
| POETRY | Verse and essay by US writer (6) |
| STYLUS | Letter originally written in pen by US writer (6) |
| SHORTY | 1990 novel by US author Elmore Leonard followed by the sequel Be Cool in 1999 (6) |
| NATIVE | ___ Son, 1940 novel written by US author Richard Wright (6) |
| BUMPPO | Hero of the five novels of the Leatherstocking Tales by US author James Fenimore Cooper, published between 1823 and 1841 (5,6) |
| PIERRE | 1852 novel by US author Herman Melville subtitled or, The Ambiguities (6) |
| WINKLE | Character who slept for 20 years in an 1819 short story by US author Washington Irving (3,3,6) |
| PSYCHO | 1959 horror novel by US author Robert Bloch set in the fictional California town of Fairvale (6) |
| THROPP | Titular protagonist of the 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by US author Gregory Maguire (7,6) |
| ONEDAY | Novel by Us author David Nicholls, made into a film starring Anne Hathaway (3,3) |
| POETASTER | Sample provided by US writer, a writer of inferior verse (9) |
| GRAPESOFWRATH | The --- --- ---, 1939 novel by US writer John Steinbeck (6,2,5) |
| OPPOSITE | Work by US writer about to settle across the road? |
| EMERSION | Reappearance of heavenly body, one described by US writer |
| APOLOGISE | Express regret a record is kept by US writer (9) |
| VANITIES | The Bonfire of the --------, a 1987 satirical novel by US writer Tom Wolfe (8) |
