Literary agent wins 2010 Maxwell Perkins prize

[July 09, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Literary agent Amanda Urban has been honored for her work encouraging writers of fiction in the United States.

The 2010 winner of the Maxwell E. Perkins Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Fiction was announced Thursday by the Center for Fiction. The nonprofit literary organization founded the award in 2005.

Urban has represented Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy, among others.

The Perkins prize is named in honor of the celebrated editor who worked with Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Previous recipients include Farrar, Straus & Giroux president Jonathan Galassi and Alfred A. Knopf editor Gary Fisketjon. Urban is the first agent to win.

[Associated Press]

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