Author with fine material written up (5)
I believe the answer is:
eliot
'author' is the definition.
(novelist George Eliot)
'fine material written up' is the wordplay.
'fine material' becomes 'toile' (type of linen).
'written up' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'toile' back-to-front is 'ELIOT'.
'with' is the link.
(Other definitions for eliot that I've seen before include "T S . . . . ., great poet of 'The Waste Land'" , "Female novelist" , "One of two writers" , "Middlemarch author" , "Murder in the Cathedral author" .)