Cybils sends our best wishes to those of you (and those of us!) who were inundated by Hurricane Sandy over the past several days. We hope you all stayed warm, safe, and dry. Due to the wild weather, we're a little bit behind in making our contacts with publishers (many of whom have offices in the disaster zone), but we're getting back on track and keeping on keepin' on.
Some of our panelists are, in fact, moving ahead at light speed–we found a post by one of our Round 1 judges in YA Fiction, Kellie Tilton of The Re-Shelf, saying she's already reached the quarter-century mark: 25 books read out of 147 eligible titles. And she compares it to walking into an uncurated art museum:
Serving as a panelist on Cybils is like going into a Museum of Random
and In No Order Paintings, trying to compare works of art even though
they are vastly different and not always in a pleasing order that will
benefit all pieces and you are forced to rely on your fellow docents
(aka panelists) to help you make sense of the chaos. Amazing, awesome
chaos. But chaos, nonetheless.
I highly recommend reading her full post–if you're wondering what it's like behind the scenes at Cybils, you'll get a good idea, and if you're already involved with Cybils, you'll definitely be nodding your head in recognition and agreement!