Exciting Cybils News

There's been lots of Cybils news this past week because they're getting the ball rolling for 2008. In my humble opinion, the most exciting Cybils news by far is the addition of a new Easy Reader category. I have gone on at great length about how I think books for younger readers don't get the attention they deserve. A Cybil is just the thing to show respect for books for new readers.

Kidlit Goings-On--Cybils Interview

Kelly Herold and Anne Boles Levy are interviewed at Cynsations regarding their involvement with The Cybils.

And The Cybil Goes To...

The Cybil winners were announced today. As with so very many awards, I haven't read a single one of them. I've been interested in The Professor's Daughter for a while, though, and The True Meaning of Smekday looks right up my alley.

Cybils Announcement

The Cybils folks announced the short lists for four categories yesterday. I was particularly interested in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Finalists, since I served on that panel last year. Notice that panel did two lists, one for YA and one for elementary/middle grade. This makes a great deal of sense given that science fiction and fantasy cover all those ages yet you probably shouldn't be trying to compare a book for eight year olds to a book for sixteen year olds. Plus it means the panel could bring twice the number of books to our attention.

Another really positive thing about the Cybils: No entry fees. I'm hearing about more and more awards that require entry fees, some of them quite hefty. Before Christmas I heard about one that required a $175 entry fee. The National Book Awards only ask for $125, for crying out loud. And that's the National Book Award.

Hefty entry fees have got to narrow the field. With the Cybils, the field is wide open. One more good thing that can be said about Cybilization.

This Is Killing Me, Killing Me

The Cybillers are getting started pulling together panelists and judges for this year's Cybils Award. I had a great time serving on the Fantasy and SciFi Panel last year. For a hardcore reader to have a serious excuse to read intensely at all times of the day and night and to receive books--sometimes by the armful--delivered to her door is just incredible. On top of that, I had my Cybil friends to e-mail with about books. Really, I was living the life God meant me to live. I'm sure of it.

I think the Cybils are going to become an important award because 1. the nominations come from the public, and 2. bloggers can write about any of the books, not just the finalists, while they're under consideration, thus giving needed publicity to books and authors. It is truly a unique award.

Though I loved being part of the Cybils and I think they're important, I'm going to force myself to pass on getting involved with them this year because I need to pay more attention to work this fall and winter than I did last year. Not only did I blow off everything while Cybilizing, it took me a month and a half to get myself back into anything remotely like a work mode.

But if you're a blogger who would love to read for a greater good, this is a wonderful opportunity. Look into it.

Actually, my Cybils experience did help me get The Durand Cousins off the ground, even though I wasn't working on it that much during December. What happened was that I was reading all that scifi and fantasy so I'm sort of in scifi/fantasy mode. I'm simmering in it. The Durand Cousins has a science fiction element, and I needed an initial starting point for one thread to make everything work. I'm thinking and thinking about this, I don't know what I'm going to do. But, remember, scifi and fantasy was my life just then.

So one day I'm riding in the car, in a scifi/fantasy fog, when all of a sudden an idea springs fully formed into my mind. I realize that I can use the basic premise of a book I tried to write right after I got out of college. And I did use it. Only time will tell if it worked, but it made it possible for me to procede with this project.

Another great moment in Gail's Cybils experience

Doesn't This Defeat The Purpose?

The Quills Awards, which were supposed to be a people's choice award, are taking power from the people. In the past, the public was presented with five book nominees in nineteen categories and got to vote on favorites. This year, librarians and booksellers will do the voting on all but one category, Book of the Year.

So I don't really see what the point of having the Quills Awards is now.

The awards never took off. Maybe the public didn't like the choices they were given. (Sort of like what often happens during presidential elections.) It will be interesting to see what happens with the Cybils in a few years. That award works in a directly opposite way. Instead of the award administrators choosing a few titles for the public to vote on, the public chooses a lot of titles for the administrators to vote on.

Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

Cybils Press

I just finished reading the March/April issue of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Bulletin, and what did I find on the very last, meaning external, page? An article by Susan Salzman Raab called Welcoming the Cybils Awards.