THEY are known for their well reviewed or bestselling novels. So what are a bunch of respected authors - including Fay Weldon, Joanne Harris, Daisy Waugh, Joan Smith, Louise Doughty and Rachel Johnson, the Sunday Times columnist - doing writing pornography?

They are among a group of 20 women who have anonymously contributed to a book of “unashamedly sexy stories”. Each has given herself a “nom de plume” or, as Kathy Lette, another of the writers, calls it, a “nom de porn”. These include Minxy Malone, Tutty Monmouth and Minty Mountjoie. They were asked to call themselves after the name of their first pet and the street where they first lived. This might have helped literary detectives, but several of the writers have confessed to breaking these rules.

In the past several women have given themselves pseudonyms to write naughty books such as Petite Anglaise, The Bride Striped Bare and Belle de Jour, which was turned into a TV series with Billie Piper. But they were by unknowns. Here, the authors have no need to make a mark.

Nonetheless, there are clues. Joan Smith, who has admitted that she used to write unpublished porn pieces when she worked in the newsroom of The Sunday Times in the early 1980s, is a classicist who is fond of travel and clothes. So is she Cassandra Bedwell, who has written Dress Code, one of the most sexually explicit pieces?

“Of course I’m not going to confirm anything,” said Smith, speaking on her mobile phone while in bed.

Stella Duffy, the crime writer, who is a lesbian, denied that her contribution was one of the two “out and out” sapphic stories. “I did have a heterosexual life before, which I can remember, though there might be a passing reference to lesbianism,” she teased.

Lette, the Australian-born writer and wit, is not only a contributor but also one of the book’s commissioners. She is well known for her literary puns and wordplay litters one story called Breaking the Rules by Pom Pom Paradise, who writes of “aural sex” and “Royal feMail”.

Lette refused to confirm or deny which story she wrote. “I would luv to help but would have to hand in my ovaries,” she emailed.

Doughty, a novelist and former Booker prize judge, confessed that her story is set abroad (which narrows it down to three) and that her style is a form of literary homage. “Mine is also not that explicit,” she said. “I did, though, find it both a challenge to write and very freeing.” Johnson, whose most recent novel is Notting Hell, revealed that “not even my husband knows which one I did. Although when I told him I’d contributed, he said, ‘Why on earth did they ask you to help as you don’t know anything about sex’.”

Johnson said she would “love to help you identify my story. But my hands are tied while a very big man is doing something unmentionable to me”.

Not everybody was willing to talk, even circuitously. “Sorry, Fay [Weldon] will not come to the phone,” said Nick Fox, her protective husband.

Some writers who were asked to contribute, including Jilly Cooper and Joanna Trol-lope, turned down the request.

“People always think, ‘Let’s try Jilly as she’s always writing about sex’,” said Cooper. “I didn’t turn it down on moral grounds. I’m just too busy.”

The book, In Bed With, is to be published by Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown, which also owns Virago, the feminist publisher. Many of the writers argue that porn and feminism can go together.

Lest the debate gets too high-minded, Lette revealed: “I’m calling us the cliterati.”

Readers left guessing who’s who between the sheets

Cassandra Bedwell: “Without hurrying, she undid the buttons on each glove and slipped her fingers out. He watched, observing as she picked up a fork that her nails showed the same glint as her hair. Her teeth were small and sharp and she chewed for a few seconds, savouring the texture of raw beef on her tongue.”

Pom Pom Paradise: “Selecting her sheerest pair of black stockings with lace tops, she hooked them up to her suspender belt and inspected herself in the mirror. Like most women, she found them an impractical but deadly weapon in the armoury of seduction.”

Storm Henley: “As I walk towards the green compost bins at the end of the garden, Pavel brushes past me. I’m not sure why he comes so near but I . . . grip my cuttings even tighter . . . hold my breath, get a grip and, throwing back my long blonde hair, walk ever more purposefully towards the bins.”

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