Lois Wallace
Lois Kahn Wallace was a prominent American literary agent, known for her representation of numerous successful authors.
Career
Born in Manhattan, she graduated from the Brearley School and Vassar College before taking a secretarial job for G.P. Putnam Sons in 1961. She went to work for agent Harold Ober in 1963, then joined the William [Morris Agency] literary department in 1967, where she became co-director before establishing her own agency in 1974.While at William Morris, Wallace convinced Erich Segal, then known mainly as a Harvard classics professor, to write a novel based on a screenplay he had written. The book was published as Love Story in 1970 and became a gigantic bestseller, both as a novel and as a film. Other clients included William F. Buckley, Stacy Schiff, Joan Didion, Don DeLillo, and Ben Stein. She became known for her particularly tenacious representation of her clients. A 1986 Washington Post profile noted that her clients "talk gratefully of her ferocity in terms normally reserved for pit bulls"—one client nicknamed her "Sluggo".