Lane Heymont is the founder and president of The Tobias Literary Agency and self-described top literary agent in horror, who pairs a deep passion for the genre's classics with a broad commercial instinct spanning fiction and serious nonfiction.
In brief
Horror is unambiguously his core and his calling card — his agency page leads with it, his reading history is saturated with it, and his wishlist references Lovecraft, Poe, and cinematic horror directors as touchstones. Any horror project should consider him a primary target.
His current agency page has quietly expanded the nonfiction mandate beyond the wishlist's pop-culture/true crime framing to include history, cultural studies, and celebrity projects — a meaningful upgrade in scope that the older wishlist understates.
The wishlist carried romance and women's fiction as a co-equal priority, but his own current agency page leads with horror and treats everything else as secondary — query romance with that context in mind.
He founded The Tobias Literary Agency in 2016 after starting his career at The Seymour Agency, so he brings both independent-founder energy and legacy-house training to his client relationships.
His submission form was directly observed as closed in May 2026 — always verify current status before querying, as windows can reopen without announcement.
Lately
His current agency bio frames him explicitly as the top literary agent in horror and leads his self-description with a focus on horror above all other genres — a notable upgrade in emphasis compared to earlier wishlist language that placed romance on equal footing.
What Lane is looking for
Horror is Heymont's declared specialty and his deepest personal passion. He is fluent in the full canon — Gothic fiction, cosmic horror, psychological dread — and brings that literacy to what he takes on. He wants work that operates in this tradition with genuine craft, not horror as surface dressing. His touchstones span Lovecraft, Poe, and the Brontë sisters on the literary end, and filmmakers like James Wan and Leigh Whannell on the visceral end, signaling he values both atmospheric menace and effective shock. Recent favorites he has named — from Alma Katsu's historical horror to Stephen Graham Jones's Indigenous-perspective horror to Ally Wilkes's Antarctic Gothic — suggest he responds especially well to horror rooted in a specific cultural, historical, or geographical lens.
He explicitly includes select YA horror within his horror focus. The gate is selectivity — not all YA horror qualifies, so the project needs to be a particularly strong fit with his horror sensibility, not simply a horror-adjacent YA thriller.
He welcomes commercial fantasy with a clear narrative hook. His named touchstones span epic fantasy rooted in world-building — the Dragonlance Chronicles and Shadow and Bone — suggesting he gravitates toward immersive secondary worlds and character-driven adventure over quiet or literary fantasy. He has also listed Knight of the Black Rose as a personal favorite, pointing toward darker, more gothic-adjacent fantasy.
He is open to science fiction with an emphasis on military SF — Starship Troopers is his named benchmark, pointing toward propulsive, ideas-driven fiction with military stakes and moral complexity, not quieter, character-only SF. Projects closer to the military or hard-SF end of the spectrum are the stronger fit.
His wishlist named romance and women's fiction as a priority area covering a wide internal range: paranormal, suspense, small-town, contemporary, historical, Regency, and both category and single-title. His named touchstone is The Notebook, pointing toward emotionally resonant, character-anchored storytelling. Note that his current agency page leads with horror and does not foreground romance — query with that context, but the wishlist language remains present and has not been retracted.
His current agency page substantially expands his nonfiction scope compared to older wishlist language. He now explicitly includes the sciences, cultural studies, history, pop culture, and celebrity projects. His personal favorites signal he values nonfiction with literary quality and genuine authority — In Cold Blood and The Dinosaur Artist are hallmarks of deeply reported, narrative-driven work. He has previously specified that true crime should come from journalists and science from credentialed researchers or experts, suggesting he values verified expertise and strong narrative voice in equal measure.
Not the right fit
On Lane's list
Taste fingerprint
How to query Lane
His form was closed as of May 2026 — check the live form on The Tobias Literary Agency's submissions page before doing anything else. Do not email cold; his current page states he only accepts queries through the online form.
Do not email attachments. His older guidelines specify pasting the first five pages of your manuscript directly into the query body — follow this format when the form reopens, and mirror this discipline in any online form fields.
Include your name, genre, title, and word count prominently. He has explicitly requested these basics, and omitting any one of them signals carelessness.
For horror specifically, anchor your query in the tradition your book inhabits — atmospheric Gothic, cosmic dread, visceral cinematic — so he can immediately place your project in his well-developed mental map of the genre. Referencing his named favorites where genuinely applicable (not gratuitously) can help orient him, but only if the comp is honest.
For nonfiction, establish your credentials early. He has previously indicated that true crime should come from journalists and science from credentialed researchers — your expertise is part of your pitch, not an afterthought.
He has stated a commitment to underrepresented voices. If you are a writer from a marginalized community or your project centers such voices authentically, that is relevant to note in your query — his agency page calls this out as a sustained priority.
Avoid querying genres he has explicitly ruled out — memoirs, thrillers, mysteries, suspense, and inspirational projects — even if your book blends elements of those with a category he does represent. Frame your project in terms of what he wants, not what he doesn't.