Allison Malecha

Director of Foreign Rights, Literary Agent

Allison Malecha joined Trellis Literary Management as Director of Foreign Rights after several years at Bettina Schrewe Literary Scouting, where she worked with major publishing clients in over twenty markets across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, as well as with an independent film client. Prior to working as a literary scout, she spent five years in editorial at independent publishing house Grove Atlantic, where she was building her own list under the publisher and was the in-house manager for Freeman's and The Mysterious Press.

As Director of Foreign Rights, Allison is honored to represent Trellis in the British Commonwealth and translation markets. With nearly a decade of experience and contacts in both the international and editorial realms of publishing, Allison has brokered deals for Trellis authors in over two dozen territories and counting, and loves being the champion for our titles around the world.   

Allison also represents a small, selective list of domestic clients split evenly between fiction and nonfiction. Within the realms of literary and upmarket fiction, she is drawn to messy family stories, outsider perspectives, and narratives that take you somewhere unexpected, whether psychologically, geographically, or historically. She likes writing that is sharp yet imaginative on the line level but wants to be moved, emotionally, by the larger story. She’s also drawn to a strong sense of place. At the moment, she’d particularly love a gothic novel set somewhere fresh, or a complex novel about friendship. Authors she deeply admires include: Jesmyn Ward, Louise Erdrich, Katie Kitamura, James McBride, Miriam Toews, Charlotte McConaghy, Catherine Newman, Kawai Strong Washburn, Daisy Johnson, and Isabella Hammad.

In nonfiction, Allison is looking for writing that is generous yet galvanizing in the categories of: narrative nonfiction, particularly with a historical or international dimension; social science; pop science; pop psychology; and memoir that touches on larger current issues or on the author's field of expertise. She is especially keen to find nature writing from underrepresented voices. Among the nonfiction authors she most looks to are: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Robert Macfarlane, Natasha Trethewey, Rachel Louise Snyder, Masha Gessen, Ibram X. Kendi, Janna Levin, James Nestor.

For a more detailed manuscript wish list, please click here.

Allison grew up between the middle of Canada and the middle of the U.S, but has always found home between the covers of a book. She has a BA in Comparative Literature & Society from Columbia University, where she studied French and Czech.