Michael Szczerban, associate editor at Simon & Schuster, has won the 2012 Ashmead Award. The award is “designed to nurture the career of a promising young editor in the field of book publishing,” in honor of editor Larry Ashmead’s history of mentoring young editors. Szczerban started at S&S in 2007 as an assistant managing editor and moved into editorial in 2009. His projects include Two Gentlemen of Lebowski , Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking Bible, and Courage and Consequence.