Doubleday executive editor and VP Gerald Howard has won the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction's 2009 Maxwell E. Perkins Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Fiction.

Howard will receive his award at the Library's November 9 annual dinner in New York City. This is the fifth year the award has been given out, and past recipients included Harcourt editor Drenka Willen and Farrar, Straus & Giroux president Jonathan Galassi. To find out more about the winner, check out this GalleyCat interview with Howard.

Here's an excerpt from the release: "Mr. Howard has been with Doubleday since 1998. In his tenure at Doubleday, he has worked with Kate Christensen, Pat Barker, Walter Kirn, Chuck Palahniuk, Bill Bryson, Muriel Spark, Robert Bingham and Gore Vidal."