Dorothy composed an essay about summer's end (6)
I believe the answer is:
sayers
'dorothy' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'composed an essay about summer's end' is the wordplay.
'composed' indicates anagramming the letters.
'about' is an insertion indicator.
'end' indicates one should take the final letters.
The last letter of 'summer' is 'r'.
'essay' anagrammed gives 'sayes'.
'sayes' enclosing 'r' is 'SAYERS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sayers that I've seen before include "They claim" , "she wrote mysteries" , "Dorothy L. ..., British crime writer" , "detective story writer" , "Peig and Dorothy L." .)