Bret Easton Ellis told the Byron Bay Writers Festival he developed a liking for Goodrem while watching MusicMax Source: Supplied

American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis told a packed audience at the Byron Bay Writers Festival last night that since arriving in Australia he had become obsessed with the singer.

"Maybe I should go out with her, who does she goes out with anyway?" he asked.

The former New York party boy dodged the usual festival line of questioning to explain he had developed a liking for Goodrem's songs while watching MusicMax.

"I didn't know who she was but God she's really hot," he said.

But when he tweeted as much, his fans responded with a "fuselage of stuff on my twitter account ... such as, 'I have lost all faith in you as an author' or 'I'm very sorry she had cancer but I still think she's a sow'.

"You guys have a really complicated relationship with Delta." he said.

Easton Ellis found fame with the novel American Psycho, a dark satire that describes in sickening detail the life of a yuppie serial killer.