What’s the secret to writing good sex scenes? It’s simple, said Jilly Cooper in a recent interview: “Keeping it fun.” And if anyone ought to know, it’s Dame Jilly. Now 87, she has been writing steamy set pieces with phenomenal success for more than five decades. Her unique literary brand, featuring oodles of glamour, romance, fun, silliness and social satire – not to mention dogs, horses and lots of puns – has won her fans as diverse as Helen Fielding, Olivia Laing, Graham Norton and Rishi Sunak.

Born in Essex and brought up in Yorkshire, Cooper began her career as a local journalist, getting her break when she met the editor of the Sunday Times magazine at a dinner party and he asked her to write about being a young working woman. This led to a frequently outrageous, often hilarious column about sex, marriage and housework that ran for 13 years.

Having already published a string of romantic novels in the 1970s named after heroines such as Bella, Imogen and Prudence, Cooper became an international bestseller in 1985 with Riders, her first novel in the long-running Rutshire Chronicles featuring the rakish Rupert Campbell-Black.

Rivals came next. Set in the cut-throat world of 1980s independent television, this 1988 novel has now been adapted for TV and will launch in the autumn on Disney+ with a starry cast including David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Nafessa Williams and Emily Atack.

Next month the Observer New Review will publish a You ask the questions interview with Dame Jilly. Here’s your chance to quiz her on everything from her storied career to her beloved dogs. How does she manage to transcend the division between high and low culture? Does she still write on a typewriter? And is Rupert Campbell-Black really based on Andrew Parker Bowles?

Post your question below, email review@observer.co.uk or tweet @ObsNewReview by midnight on Sunday 15 September