Over time, though, I started realizing that working as a literary agent would be a much better fit for me. Every part of the job aligned with my skill set and passions \u2014 I’ve always had a sharp editorial eye, and I’d gained so many negotiation and client-management skills as a lawyer.<\/p>\n
While working full-time, I spent a year learning as much as I could about the publishing industry, until a workshop on becoming an agent stopped me in my tracks. I learned that the only way I could realistically make a career pivot<\/a> was to become an intern or an assistant first.<\/p>\n As a Big Law associate<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n So, I took my husband out to lunch and broke the news: At 31, eight months pregnant with our first child, I was giving up on pursuing my dream job.<\/p>\n Leaving New York City for my Florida hometown helped me pursue my dream career<\/p>\n When we started having kids, it suddenly felt important to live near my family.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lauren Khan<\/p>\n Everything changed when I gave birth to our son in October 2023. Suddenly, being closer to family outweighed my love for Manhattan.<\/p>\n A week before my due date, we put an offer on a house in my small beach hometown<\/a> on Florida’s Space Coast. The home was down the street from the house I grew up in, where my parents still live.<\/p>\n With a warmth and sense of community we’d been searching for, my hometown was everything we could’ve wanted for our growing family.<\/p>\n As happy as I was, there was one snag: I couldn’t keep my New York-based legal job after moving. Thankfully, we had some flexibility \u2014 my husband’s job was remote, so he could support us while I figured out my next steps.<\/p>\n Without the financial pressures that come with New York City’s higher cost of living<\/a>, we suddenly could afford for me not to work for a while, so I poured myself into caring for our son and writing.<\/p>\n Signing with a literary agent was a dream come true.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lauren Khan<\/p>\n Meanwhile, all of the publishing dreams I’d pushed aside came rushing back. With a lower cost of living and my mom helping with childcare, becoming a literary agent was suddenly on the table again.<\/p>\n I started a remote publishing internship, which only made me more passionate about this career path. As it wrapped up, while pregnant with our second child, I began emailing literary agencies in search of a full-time agenting role.<\/p>\n Everything fell into place the morning I woke up to an email from the CEO of my dream agency asking for a call. My family had coming plans to visit New York, so I followed up that call with an in-person meeting with the VP. At the end of that meeting, she offered me a remote job<\/a> as a literary agent.<\/p>\n Two weeks after giving birth to our daughter in July 2025, I opened up to queries from writers looking for a literary agent and never looked back. The agency told me to take my time after having my baby, but I was too excited to wait.<\/p>\n I spent my postpartum months reading manuscripts and signing new clients. As I got the hang of being a mom of two under 2 while managing my dream career, I’d never felt more fulfilled.<\/p>\n The move has allowed me to fulfill my wildest career dreams while still growing our family<\/p>\n About a year later, I now represent over a dozen clients across fiction and non-fiction with multiple book deals<\/a> closed or in the works.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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