Stew over author regularly in a difficult situation (3,6)
I believe the answer is:
hot potato
'a difficult situation' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'stew over author regularly' is the wordplay.
'stew' becomes 'hotpot' (I've seen this before**).
'over' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'regularly' means one should take alternating letters (regularly take one letter, leave next etc.).
The alternating letters of 'author' are 'ato'.
'hotpot'+'ato'='HOT POTATO'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for hot potato that I've seen before include "that's controversial" , "Problem that's painful to grasp" , "Situation likely to cause trouble, like thermal spud" , "troublesome affair" , "Troublesome thing (in a jacket?)" .)