| 100% | POE | 3 | Writer who wrote "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity" |
| 90% | POE | 3 | Author who wrote "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity" |
| 81% | POE | 3 | He once wrote "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity" |
| 35% | SALLY | 5 | I wrote "Conversations with Friends" and won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year |
| 34% | MARY | 4 | I wrote "Frankenstein" and shared my name with my mother who was a writer and a feminist philosopher |
| 31% | MARY | 4 | ___ Wollstonecraft, English feminist writer who wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" |
| 31% | KAHN | 4 | Gus who wrote "Dream a Little Dream of Me" |
| 31% | OMAR | 4 | Poet who wrote of "Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp" |
| 30% | SYKES | 5 | Eric —, comedian-writer who authored 2005 volume of biography If I Don't Write It, Nobody Else Will |
| 30% | ERIC | 4 | & 8A Comedian-writer who authored 2005 volume of biography If I Don't Write It, Nobody Else Will |
| 30% | JOYCE | 5 | Author who wrote "The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit" |
| 30% | CHELSEAHANDLER | 14 | Comedian who wrote the memoir “Life Will Be the Death of Me” |
| 30% | LEY | 3 | Writer Willy who wrote "The Conquest of Space" |
| 29% | LEWISCARROLL | 12 | Writer who was the source of all the words with asterisked clues in this puzzle |
| 29% | ROSA | 4 | Parks who wrote, "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in" |
| 29% | ALEC | 4 | Guinness who wrote “My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor” |
| 29% | LEGEND | 6 | John who had a hit with All Of Me |
| 29% | GAILSIMONE | 10 | Writer who had the longest tenure as a woman writing Wonder Woman comic books (2 wds.) |
| 29% | JALAWRENCE | 10 | Writer who collaborated with 39-Across on novels based on episodes of "Star Trek" (3 wds.) |
| 28% | TSELIOT | 7 | Poet who wrote "I grow old ... I grow old ... / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled" |
| 28% | LEONARDCOHEN | 12 | "Hallelujah" singer-songwriter who wrote "Book of Longing," a book of poetry and drawings (2 wds.) |
| 28% | EON | 3 | Longest interval of geologic time |
| 28% | PARISREVIEW | 11 | With “The,” magazine with a long-running interview series about the craft of writing |
| 28% | PATTI | 5 | With 40-Across, daughter of the 40th president who wrote "The Long Goodbye" |
| 28% | FIRE | 4 | I'm one of the classical elements who is associated with heat and dryness |
| 28% | PINACOLADA | 10 | What I'm going to have after I've finished writing these clues and it's spelled out with the first two letters of five of the longest puzzle answers |
| 28% | ANGELOU | 7 | Poet who wrote "You may shoot me with your words, / You may cut me with your eyes" |
| 28% | ERMA | 4 | Bombeck who wrote If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? |