Writer lost out in diverting article (7)
I believe the answer is:
tolstoy
'writer' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'lost out in diverting article' is the wordplay.
'out' is an anagram indicator (out can mean wrong or inaccurate).
'in diverting article' becomes 'toy' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'lost' anagrammed gives 'tols'.
'tols'+'toy'='TOLSTOY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tolstoy that I've seen before include "Count Leo . . . . . . . wrote 'War and Peace'" , "Russian novelist" , "He wrote Anna Karenina" , "Russian writer, 1828-1910" , "Writer of War and Peace, d.1910" .)