Ali Lake is a Brooklyn-based literary agent at O'Connor Literary Agency with a wide-ranging taste—from eerie literary fiction and narrative nonfiction to romantasy and cozy mystery—united by a hunger for original voice and revelatory human experience.
In brief
Lake's submission form was observed closed as of December 19, 2025 — confirm live status before querying.
Her wishlist skews toward books with strong authorial voice above almost everything else: whether it's pop science, memoir, or literary fiction, she consistently names voice as the deciding factor.
Her background spans rights sales, contract analytics at ICM, and assisting senior agents at Janklow & Nesbit — she arrived at O'Connor in mid-2023 with an unusually business-literate foundation for a newer agent.
She trained as a professional ballet dancer before college, studied both English and French literature at Columbia, and interned for a French African publisher — a background that likely informs her receptivity to international perspectives and literary ambition.
Her stated wishlist is notably broad (memoir, thriller, cozy mystery, romantasy, cookbooks, campus fiction, pop science, self-help), which suggests she is still actively building a diverse list rather than defending an established niche.
Lately
Her agency profile page carries the headline 'Shaping Books That Matter' and opens with a statement that she works with books to change the world — ranging from giving a single reader a daily refuge to shifting societal thinking permanently. This is her most current public self-description and signals that she weighs both literary ambition and broad emotional impact.
What Ali is looking for
Lake has a deep appetite here and lists the most specific criteria of any category on her wishlist. She wants memoir and narrative nonfiction that uses one person's journey as a lens into a quirky, niche world — think surprising characters and subcultures rather than a straight personal story. She is especially drawn to projects rooted in the digital world: internet rabbit holes, Reddit communities, niche fandom, social-media phenomena. She also wants sports and outdoor adventure narratives, with a pointed interest in voices that have historically been shut out of that genre. A third lane is the justice memoir — personal accounts of fighting systemic or everyday injustice. Across all of these, she prioritizes a distinctive, compelling voice.
She is drawn to rigorously reported, deeply researched nonfiction that excavates the history, root causes, and present-day consequences of a problem that deserves more public attention. Think investigative narrative that changes how the reader understands a systemic issue.
Lake wants pop science that is genuinely weird and surprising — books that expose hidden or counterintuitive truths about the world in a way that feels fresh and even slightly unnerving. Accessibility and wonder are essential.
She wants self-help that earns its advice through evidence and comes packaged in a strong, defined authorial voice with a clear vision. She is not interested in generic wellness content — the author needs to bring a fresh framework.
Lake is open to cookbooks, but only those that teach something beyond the recipes themselves — technique, shopping instincts, flavor intuition, cultural or historical context. The voice must be distinctive and the editorial ambition must go beyond recipe collection.
This may be her most passionate fiction lane. She is drawn to literary fiction that works with repressed trauma surfacing quietly beneath the texture of everyday life — an eerie or uncanny undercurrent rather than overt horror. The emotional register should feel unsettling without tipping into genre horror.
She also actively seeks witty, carefully observed literary and upmarket fiction that captures something true about love or contemporary life. Sharp social intelligence and a confident prose style are essential. She seems to favor books that are smart and emotionally honest without being dour.
Lake welcomes literary fiction that incorporates a speculative twist or draws on mythological frameworks — but the literary sensibility should be primary. These are not genre fantasy novels; the speculative element serves the emotional and thematic core.
She is receptive across the suspense-adjacent spectrum — atmospheric thriller, upmarket horror, and cozy mystery all appear on her radar. The unifying thread seems to be a sense of elevated craft rather than pure genre mechanics.
She wants romcom that plays knowingly with genre conventions rather than following them straight — playful, smart, and self-aware about the tropes it's working with.
Lake is open to fantasy, specifically adventure-driven stories and romantasy with brisk pacing and compelling world-building. She is not seeking slow-burn, high-concept secondary-world epics — propulsion and energy matter.
She is drawn to new adult fiction and campus novels — stories set at university or in the years just after, with YA-level emotional intensity and pacing. Self-discovery, social navigation, and the chaos of early adulthood are the core material.
Not the right fit
On Ali's list
Taste fingerprint
How to query Ali
Her form was closed as of December 19, 2025 — check the live status on her agency page before attempting to submit; open windows can appear without much notice.
Voice is the single most repeated criterion across every category on her wishlist. Your query letter must convey the narrator's or author's voice in a way that's immediately distinctive — a flat, plot-summary-only letter will not land.
For nonfiction, demonstrate that you have genuine insider access or a specific angle that couldn't come from anyone else. She wants the quirky-world memoir that only you could write, and the reported nonfiction that only you could report.
If you're querying fiction, know which of her lanes you're in and pitch it cleanly: eerie-literary, witty-upmarket, speculative-literary, and propulsive-fantasy are distinct asks and she seems to have a clear sense of which is which.
For the digital-subculture nonfiction lane, be as specific as possible about the community or trend at the center of the book — she has signaled active interest here, so a crisp, vivid description of the world you're entering will resonate.
Her background includes rights, contracts, and deal analytics at major agencies — she is commercially minded as well as editorially driven. Showing awareness of your book's market position alongside its literary merits is appropriate.
She studied French literature and interned for a French African press, suggesting genuine openness to translated-world or international perspectives — if your project has that dimension, it's worth noting briefly.
Her pre-agenting career included assisting at a large agency — she has seen enormous submission volume. A clean, well-structured query that respects her time and gets to the point quickly will serve you better than an elaborate or experimental query letter format.