Anne here, your Cybils Overlord. I'm leaving you for a while. Oh, it's nothing you all did, except make this here literary awards into something really amazing and prestigious and fun. That kept me busy. Too busy, I'm sorry to say.
I am changing careers and readying for my new job, which starts next week. Inspired by the teachers, authors, bloggers and librarians I've met through Cybils, I'm going to give this whole edjoo-kashun thing a whirl. I'll be teaching 6th grade English at a brand-spanking-new charter school called Basis Phoenix. Classes in Arizona start Aug. 8th, and the next few weeks will be filled with teacher training.
My employer made me explicitly promise to curtail my involvement with Cybils while I mastered my new job. They're right. I'll be teaching 6 sections — that's more than 150 kids — and they deserve my full attention.
I plan to be back in December in time to post the short lists, and I am going to beg and plead my way onto a judging roster for Round 2 if anyone can still stand my opinionated self.
In the meantime, Jackie Parker has graciously agreed to fill in for me. Jackie has organized our Young Adult Fiction judges for, um, a while. A long while. Five years? Six? She is indispensible to Cybils, in any case. The transition occurred very smoothly. I sent out an email saying, "Jackie, you're it." And voila! It is so.
It is good to be the Overlord — even one on hiatus.
Enjoy the upcoming Cybils season.