Ali Lake grew up in Palo Alto, California and, before pursuing higher education, danced ballet professionally. She studied English and French Literature at Columbia University, during which time she interned selling English-language rights for French publisher Présence Africaine Éditions and as a manuscript editor for O’Connor Literary Agency.

She graduated summa cum laude in 2017, winning the Barrat Brown Memorial Prize for excellence in critical writing. In 2018, she joined ICM Partners (now part of Creative Artists Agency) performing royalty, sales, and contract analysis to support agent negotiations and inform agency business decisions. In 2020, she joined Janklow & Nesbit Associates supporting senior literary agents Mel Flashman and Emma Parry, while building her own list of fiction, nonfiction, and young adult novels. In June 2023, she joined O’Connor Literary Agency as a literary agent. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.