The Team
Aaron Priest - President / Agent
Aaron Priest was born in Providence, Rhode Island and graduated from Columbia College in 1959. Having worked for several years as a sales rep for Doubleday, he started the agency in 1974.
Partnered with Molly Friedrich for many of those years, the agency has represented among many others, David Baldacci, Frank McCourt, Sue Grafton, Erma Bombeck, Philip Caputo, Johanna Lindsey, Terry McMillan and Jane Smiley.
Aaron was a founding member of the ILAA (Independent Literary Agents Association) which is now the Association of Author’s representatives. Aaron is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Jewish Theological Seminary and is also on the board of The Schechter Institute of Jerusalem. He serves as well as an executive member of the UJA Publishing Committee. He and his wife Arleen have two sons and two grandsons.
Lisa Erbach Vance - Agent
Lisa Erbach Vance has been with the Aaron Priest Literary Agency since 1993. Her clients include Harlan Coben, G.M. Ford, Gregg Hurwitz, Gayle Lynds, Matt Beynon Rees, Bill Fitzhugh, Aaron Elkins, Sindiwe Magona and Ann Howard Creel.
Her publishing career began at Random House, Inc. where she was selected as one of the first participants in their new Management Trainee program, after which she became an associate in the foreign rights department at Crown Publishers, before moving to Aaron Priest.
Lisa was born and raised outside of Chicago, and she has a B.A. in English Literature from Northwestern University. She is currently most interested in thrillers, historical fiction, upmarket women’s fiction, international fiction and narrative non-fiction.
Lucy Childs Baker - Agent
Lucy's been at the agency since 1995, having switched from professional actress to literary agent. Her clients include Frances Sherwood, Elizabeth Diamond, and Peter Charles Melman.
Interested in both commercial fiction (women's, mystery, edgy chick lit), and especially literary fiction (including historical), as well as narrative non-fiction. While willing to read just about anything as long as it's intelligent and well-written, Lucy isn't interested in seeing horror, fantasy,
sci-fi, self-help, or poetry.
Nicole Kenealy - Agent
Nicole Kenealy graduated from The University of Colorado at Boulder with a B.F.A in acting. After giving the theatre world a go, she decided that if you can imagine yourself as anything but an actor, do that instead. So, as an avid reader, she entered publishing at The Aaron Priest Literary Agency three years ago.
Nicole is truly reading everything and anything; however, her specific tastes are as follows: literary fiction (particularly with a cultural relevance), women's fiction, gay/lesbian fiction, young adult fiction, and works in translation.
Frances Jalet Miller - In House Editor
Frances Jalet-Miller joined the Aaron M. Priest Agency in 1992 as its resident editor. She earned a B.A. in Prose Fiction from Vassar College, and an M.F.A. in Prose Fiction from Columbia University.
She has worked as an editor at St. Martin's Press, Pantheon, Grove Press (in its Barney Rosset era), Dembner Books, and now, concurrent with her work at the Priest Agency, she is a consulting editor at a major New York publishing house. She has worked with such writers as David Baldacci, Philip Caputo, Henry Louis Gates, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Christgau, Roy Walford, and Pat De Voto.
Arleen Gradinger Priest - Bookkeeper / Office Manager
Raised in Rochester, New York and a graduate of Syracuse University, she is an accomplished ceramicist. Arleen serves as, bookkeeper, office manager and overall consultant.
For years she has been involved with coordinating a food program for the homeless at a shelter in White Plains, New York as well as many other philanthropic causes. An avid reader and student, she's taken adult education classes for the past twenty-seven years.
John Richmond - General Assistant
John Richmond arrived at the Aaron Priest Agency in 2007. After graduating from the University of California-Berkeley with a degree in history, John made the jump to New York and the world of publishing, spending time at Inkwell Management and Spectrum Literary Agency.
John likes to read literary fiction, the darker and funnier the better, and since joining Aaron Priest, he has developed a taste for smart thrillers. He also enjoys topical nonfiction of all kinds—especially current events, history and pop culture.
Golda
Golda is the only member of the agency who does not read, however she adds great moral comfort to those of us who do.
