American writers in south-east creating tension (8)
I believe the answer is:
suspense
'tension' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'american writers in south-east' is the wordplay.
'american' becomes 'us'.
'writers' becomes 'pens' (I've seen this before).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'south east' becomes 'se'.
'us'+'pens'='uspens'
'uspens' put into 'se' is 'SUSPENSE'.
'creating' is the link.
(Other definitions for suspense that I've seen before include "Tense expectation" , "Excitement and uncertainty about an outcome" , "feature of exciting fiction?" , "Seen puss (anag.)" , "expectancy" .)