Lauren Khan is an author, literary agent at FinePrint Literary Management, co-host of the popular publishing podcast The Prose Pros, and a former corporate lawyer. She lived in Manhattan for a decade before moving to her small beach hometown in Florida to raise her three babies (two humans, one pup).

Four and a half years ago, before we had kids and on the eve of my 30th birthday, my husband asked me: What would you do, even if you knew you’d fail?

My answer came easily to both of us. At the same time, we said, “Write a book.”

Without a second thought, I turned to my laptop, closed out of my legal work, and opened up a blank Word document. That question, that page — neither magically turned into a book or a book deal. But the question and answer did send me on a winding, career-changing, life-changing adventure through publishing that I still feel is only just beginning.

For the next two years, I wrote on and off the book of my heart, all while learning how. I learned about publishing from episodes of The Shit No One Tells You About Writing and books on craft like Save The Cat! Writes a Novel and Story Genius. I took novel-writing classes at Gotham Writers Workshop. I had no idea how hard it was to write a book until I tried. Up until that point, my writing had always stopped at a chapter, an essay, an idea. This was the first time I’d fully committed to my lifelong dream of writing a novel.

Like a woman possessed, I’d sneak out of my law firm at lunchtime to attend panels at the Bryant Park Reading Room to meet authors like Annabel Monaghan, then hide my signed copy of Nora Goes Off Script behind my desk. No one at my law firm had any idea that while I was talking to them about mergers and acquisitions, I was really dreaming about writing and publishing. Not for the first time in my legal career, I felt like I was leading a double life.

Even when I would take a couple months off from my book, especially during my first trimester of pregnancy, I would always find my way back (or cheat on my novel with a discarded first draft of another book during NaNoWriMo). Two months after my son was born, we left the city for my hometown, and even though the postpartum journey combined with the move set my progress back, I couldn’t let my dream go. I finished and queried my first novel, a romantic comedy set in NYC about a lawyer who wants to be a novelist (go figure), and signed with an agent as my maternity leave was ending, when my son was six months old.

My novel went on submission, but once my initial excitement wore off, something didn’t feel quite right. She’d only pitched the book to a handful of editors, and advised me not to take an R&R from a Big 5 imprint. While hearing from her less and less, I started writing my next romance, but after my agent pitched my first book to editors as women’s fiction, I began to feel boxed into a genre I never signed up for.

January 2025 was another turning point for me. I was pregnant with my daughter, raising a one-year-old and new puppy, and had left my legal job six months prior when the firm could no longer support me working remotely. Two life-changing things happened at once: I started brainstorming a thriller idea that wouldn’t leave me alone. And I finally decided to find a literary agent internship.

In the background of my writing journey, I had been exploring the idea of transitioning from the law to becoming a literary agent. As a Big Law associate, though, there weren’t enough hours in the day to tack on an internship, and I couldn’t afford the risk of starting over as an assistant while saving for our new baby in one of the most expensive cities in the world. But with a lower cost of living after our move to Florida and my mom helping with childcare, becoming a literary agent was suddenly on the table again.

I applied to 100 internships over the course of a few weeks, and ultimately accepted a position with Brent Taylor at TriadaUS. It was an unbelievable opportunity to learn from a powerhouse senior agent, and as I began applying to agency jobs, the dream of becoming an agent myself morphed into a reality. I had a few agency offers but my offer from FinePrint Literary Management was a no-brainer. I received the offer in-person in NYC in May 2026, a month and a half before my due date. I was wildly pregnant but that wasn’t going to stop me. I hit the ground running and opened to queries ten days after my daughter was born.

Still agented and on submission with my first novel, as I was pitching myself to potential clients, I began to hear myself repeating the same refrain. Sign with me, I’d say, and you won’t have to worry about x-y-z things that my agent does. Toward the end of summer, I began to realize I couldn’t keep saying those words. Not hearing from my agent for three months at a time wasn’t working for me anymore. My writing career felt stalled as my agenting career was just beginning. It was time for me to leave.

By October, I was well into the first draft of my thriller, written in the cracks of my day with two under two while also signing my own clients and taking them out on submission. A lot of that thriller was drafted on Google Docs on my phone with a baby or toddler asleep on my chest. Since having children, I’ve learned that writing can truly happen anywhere, but mostly during naptime or at 5 am before the house is awake. I left my agent on Halloween, and yes, it was scary. But diving into the unknown was also necessary. I finished my thriller in the spring and by the end of April had multiple agent offers, and a whopping 47 requests for the full manuscript.

I signed with Jessica Mileo at InkWell Management, my dream agent and agency, and she sent me her edit letter right away. Because I’ve experienced what it’s like to die on submission, I wanted this book to be as strong as it can possibly be. Leaning on my trusty Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, I spent the summer rewriting my novel and am unbelievably proud of the result. THE WOLF’S DEN is a dual-timeline/POV psychological thriller about a group of former law students returning to Charleston for a wedding ten years after their friend drowned, and the chaos that unfolds when the best man is found dead the morning of the wedding. Like me when I was drafting with the goal of leaving my agent, the main character Violet is extremely pregnant, and will do anything to get what she wants.

On The Prose Pros, the publishing podcast I co-host with fellow agent-author Tali Shammas, we have interviewed countless authors who left their agent only to reboot their career. We have interviewed just as many authors whose first novel died on submission, only for their next book to sell (and sell big). As my agent and I get my novel ready for submission this fall, I think the tide is turning for me too. My writing is so much stronger, and so is my agenting, my platform, and my own knowledge of the industry. My pitch for my next thriller is already in my agent’s inbox.

I have a feeling good news is coming.

Bonus: Read the query letter that got Lauren 47 full requests!

Dear [Agent],

I have parted amicably with my agent and am seeking new representation for my next project. My psychological thriller with threads of domestic suspense THE GOLD COAST is 70,000 words and will appeal to readers who enjoy a cynical, morally gray female narrator. This novel is comparable to the unsolved murder within a toxic friend group in Ashley Winstead’s In My Dream I Hold a Knife, twisty exploration of friendship in Stacy Willingham’s Only If You’re Lucky, meets the secrets of infidelity amidst the chaos of a wedding weekend in Elin Hilderbrand’s The Perfect Couple. This book would also fit comfortably on a shelf next to Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino for its unhinged female narrator who will go to extreme lengths for the perfect family.

One friend group. Two drownings. Ten years apart.

Violet has always existed at the periphery of a law school friend group known as the HU Crew as an insignificant significant other. Pregnant with their first child, Violet is accompanying her husband to the Chicago wedding weekend of a couple in the friend group when the best man—and Violet’s ex—is found dead the morning after the welcome party. His death spurs painful memories of their friend Lexi’s suicide following graduation ten years prior. Over the course of the weekend, parallels in the two drownings alter the lens of Lexi’s suicide, raising questions about her true cause of death. Violet unravels as she becomes convinced her husband was involved and will do anything to preserve his innocence, to protect the family she’s worked so hard to build.

I am a literary agent at FinePrint Literary Management, co-host of the publishing podcast The Prose Pros, and a former corporate lawyer. I lived in Manhattan for a decade before moving to my small beach hometown in Florida to raise my three babies (two humans, one pup). I am a graduate of Duke University and Fordham Law, and frequently take writing classes taught by CeCe Lyra and Gotham Writers Workshop. I have more than 10,000 followers across social media platforms under the handle @laurenjpkhan.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best,

Lauren Khan