Terrible female novelist in Italian town (10)
I believe the answer is:
gorgonzola
'italian town' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'terrible female novelist' is the wordplay.
'terrible female' becomes 'gorgon' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'novelist' becomes 'zola' (Zola is an example).
'gorgon'+'zola'='GORGONZOLA'
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for gorgonzola that I've seen before include "Italian town" , "Blue-veined cheese" , "Italian blue cheese" , "Big cheese" .)