THE ASHMEAD AWARD
Honoring outstanding editorial achievement
YALE PUBLISHING COURSE July 31-August 5, 2016
Applications are due by June 10, 2016.
Nominate your candidate now!
Larry Ashmead
The Ashmead Award, honoring legendary book editor Larry Ashmead, is designed to nurture the career of a promising young editor in the field of book publishing, as an effort to recognize and continue the tradition of Larry’s long and honorable history of mentoring young editors and helping them develop their careers in publishing.
About the award
Awarded to one editor each year, the Ashmead Award continues Larry's tradition of apprenticeship by sending each year’s winner to a recognized educational publishing venue. This year, and since its inception, the winner will attend the Yale Publishing Course, to be held July 19-24 in New Haven. In addition to sending the winner to YPC, the Ashmead Award provides the winner with access to a distinguished advisory committee consisting of preeminent authors, editors and agents in the publishing community.
Nominating candidates
If there is a bright young editor at your publishing house whose work thus far indicates he or she has a flair for book publishing, we want to know!
In order to continue Larry's legacy of mentoring, this editor will, ideally, have approximately 4 to 5 years experience in publishing. An excellent candidate is a young assistant or associate editor who has begun to acquire a list but is still in need of mentoring from more experienced editors. Please tell us your experiences with this editor, any books he or she may have acquired or edited, and what about your candidate has impressed you most. The nominee need not be your direct report.
To nominate a candidate, fill out the form above.
Larry Ashmead
From the New York Times: "(Ashmead) got a job as an editorial assistant at Doubleday, where his boss gave him a manuscript by (Isaac) Asimov. Mr. Ashmead leaned on his scientific background to find error upon error. Asimov showed the young man he was wrong virtually every time, but said he had never had anyone pay such close attention to a manuscript. He asked Mr. Ashmead to be his editor.
"Mr. Ashmead went from Doubleday to Simon & Schuster to Lippincott, which merged with Harper & Row. It later became HarperCollins after Harper merged with William Collins Sons & Company.
"Mr. Ashmead retired from HarperCollins in 2003. He wrote a book in 2007 called “Bertha Venation: And Hundreds of Other Funny Names of Real People.” The names he unearthed included Penny Hoare, Hedda Lettuce and Quentin Cucumber."
Donate
Tax deductible donations to the Ashmead Award may be sent to:
New York Community Trust
909 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Please make out checks to "Community Funds" and write "For The Ashmead Award"
Past winners
Miriam Chotiner-Gardner
The 2014 Ashmead Award winner was Miriam Chotiner-Gardner, who was an editorial assistant at Crown then promoted to an associate editor.
2014
Jessica Williams
The 2013 Ashmead Award winner was Jessica Williams, an associate editor at William Morrow, now an editor.
2013
Michael Szczerban
The 2012 winner, Michael Szczerban, was an editor at Simon & Schuster. He is now an executive editor at Little, Brown.
2012