Lauren MacLeod is a Nashville-based senior agent at Aevitas Creative Management who has built one of the stronger food-and-cookbook lists in the business while also repping New York Times–bestselling YA, true crime, and narrative nonfiction.
In brief
Her sales record reveals a genuine specialty in food: she represents multiple working chefs (Kenny Gilbert, Nelson German, James Beard Award–winning Rogelio Garcia) and food scientists, making her one of the few agents with deep culinary-industry relationships.
On the fiction side, her longest and most productive client partnership is with Jodi Meadows — a New York Times–bestselling YA author across more than a dozen titles, demonstrating real commercial muscle in teen fantasy and historical fiction.
Her LGBTQ+ YA track is consistent: Nicole Maines, Aminah Mae Safi, Helene Dunbar, and Andrea Mosqueda all write queer-centered stories, and Safi won the Middle East Book Award — a pattern MacLeod does not foreground in her bio but the roster makes plain.
Her stated wishlist currently limits open submissions to cookbooks, food writing, pop culture, and true crime; YA/MG, memoir, history, and narrative nonfiction are only considered through referral at this time.
Her submission form was observed closed as of May 2023 — writers should verify current status directly before querying, as this can change.
Lately
Her submission guidelines specify that at this time she is accepting direct queries only for food writing, cookbooks, pop culture, and true crime; all other categories — including YA, MG, memoir, history, and narrative nonfiction — are only being considered when a submission comes through a referral.
What Lauren is looking for
This is MacLeod's top stated priority and her most developed roster category. She wants the full range — debut cookbooks with a distinct, ambitious point of view, books built around a chef's cultural identity or culinary philosophy, and food-history or foodways titles with academic depth. She is a member of Les Dames d'Escoffier Nashville, signaling professional roots in the food world. A James Beard Award–caliber project is explicitly her benchmark.
She wants narrative nonfiction rooted in food culture, food history, and the social dimensions of eating — from academic explorations of foodways to book-length food journalism. Projects that blend food with race, identity, immigration, or politics align well with her existing roster.
MacLeod is specifically hunting for true crime with literary ambition — she cites Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as the book that first drew her to adult nonfiction, and she continues to seek projects that match its blend of atmosphere, character, and moral complexity. Procedural or purely sensationalist crime writing is not the fit; the prose and the place need to do serious work.
Pop culture analysis and cultural criticism are welcome and currently open for direct submission. Projects with a feminist or LGBTQ+ lens, or that interrogate beloved institutions with wit and rigor, suit her taste best.
YA is only considered via referral at present. Within that gate, her track record strongly favors YA fantasy (especially with romantic or historical threads), LGBTQ+-centered contemporary, and socially conscious stories featuring protagonists from underrepresented backgrounds. First-person verse or lyrical prose with a strong sense of place also appears on her roster.
Middle grade is considered via referral only. She has a modest MG presence on her roster; adventure and contemporary MG with strong voice are the best inference from her list.
Memoir is referral-only at this time. Her existing memoir work skews toward activists and public figures with genuinely distinctive voices and social stakes — not celebrity memoir for its own sake.
Narrative nonfiction and history are referral-only. She has sold rigorous, research-heavy histories and has a taste for nonfiction that blends social history with compelling individual stories.
Not the right fit
On Lauren's list
Taste fingerprint
How to query Lauren
Her form was closed as of May 2023 — check her current agency page for the live status before doing anything else; submitting to a closed form is wasted effort.
If the form is open, she currently accepts direct email queries only for cookbooks, food writing, pop culture, and true crime — do not cold-query her for YA, MG, memoir, history, or narrative nonfiction without a referral.
For cookbook and food queries, lead with your credentials: professional kitchen experience, culinary community ties, an existing platform, or a clearly defined audience will separate you from the pile. She has sold James Beard Award–caliber work and that is her stated benchmark.
For literary true crime, she is not looking for procedural or shock-value crime writing — she wants atmospheric, place-driven, character-rich work. Frame your pitch around the narrative arc and the world of the book, not just the crime itself.
For pop culture submissions, a strong analytical angle — especially one with feminist or LGBTQ+ dimensions — is more likely to resonate than a purely celebratory fan book.
Her taste in TV (Yellowjackets, Succession, Broad City, Veep, Mad Men) signals a preference for sharp wit, moral complexity, and female-driven or ensemble narratives — relevant context if you are pitching pop culture or true crime.
She is deeply embedded in the AALA and on its AI and contracts committees; if your project touches on author rights, publishing industry disruption, or AI in creative fields, that context could be worth a line in your query letter.