Kayla Lightner is an agent and rights manager at Ayesha Pande Literary. Prior to joining Ayesha Pande Literary, Kayla worked as an assistant at Liza Dawson Associates. She is a member of the AALA (Association of American Literary Agents) as well as a member of their DEI committee. She is also on the Adult Internship Grant committee for We Need Diverse Books. A Georgia native, she earned her B.A. in English from Vassar College. Before finding her way to publishing, she held various positions including a fashion market assistant at Harper’s Bazaar and a freelance writer at Creative Loafing Atlanta. An adventurous reader, Kayla loves stories—across commercial fiction, literary fiction, and nonfiction—that masterfully straddle the line between story-telling and teaching her something new.