The Mercantile Library issued a press release yesterday that Knopf vice president and editor at large Gary Fisketjon - best known for editing authors including Bret Easton Ellis, Raymond Carver, Patricia Highsmith, Jay McInerney & Cormac McCarthy, to name but a select few - has won the Maxwell E. Perkins Award for distinguished achievement in fiction. The crystal award is to be given on Nov. 6 at the Racquet and Tennis Club in Manhattan.

In announcing the 2006 winner Noreen Tomassi, Executive Director of the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction, said,"The creation of the Vintage Contemporaries series was a landmark event in fiction publishing in America, and Gary also has an incredible track record working with some of the finest American writers. The Maxwell Perkins Award was presented for the first time last year to Nan A. Talese, and we can't imagine a more appropriate recipient for the second award than Gary Fisketjon."