South American author regularly dreads being shelved (9)
I believe the answer is:
suspended
'shelved' is the definition.
(suspending is a kind of shelving)
'south american author regularly dreads' is the wordplay.
'south' becomes 'S' (synonyms).
'american' becomes 'us' (abbreviation for United States).
'author' becomes 'pen'.
'regularly' means one should take alternating letters (regularly take one letter, leave next etc.).
The alternating letters of 'dreads' are 'ded'.
's'+'us'+'pen'+'ded'='SUSPENDED'
'being' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for suspended that I've seen before include "Temporarily disallowed" , "Hung or halted temporarily" , "put aside" , "Postponed; hung" , "Hanged" .)