I was in such a frantic rush to edit the winners' list and get it posted that I never wrote a dedication. I decided to post it somewhat belatedly, if you all don't mind.
I thought about dedicating this year's awards to our hard-working judges in both rounds. Geez, you guys were paddling upstream this Cybils season, what with all the books that didn't arrive. I judged in Round 2 for the fantasy list and I still haven't gotten a single review copy out of 11 books. Thank goodness for the public librarian/goddess who helped me round up what I needed.
But then I thought, geez, our friends in publishing are really hurting this year. If you've been blogging for any length of time, you know the first-tier publicity staff tends to last in their jobs about as long as it takes to update your email address book. But the recession is affecting people at every level. Check out this list of the casualties.
We can hardly blame them for vanishing into the ether without ordering our review copies first. I've been laid off repeatedly from journalism jobs and can tell you that it never gets any easier.
So this year's Cybils is dedicated to our friends in publishing who are more likely to be combing Careerbuilders.com than this site right now. We haven't forgotten the great job you did cultivating authors and illustrators, shepherding their manuscripts through production and bringing the final, glorious book to our attention.
Whatever this crazy recession brings, we hope you muddle through and emerge, phoenix-like, with new jobs and new lists and a renewed zeal for your craft.
Anne Levy, Cybils editor