This is it, everyone. The countdown has begun. Nominations open at one minute after the stroke of midnight Pacific time tonight. Remember, there'll be an electronic form available instead of leaving nominations in the comments. Read about it here. The rest of the panelists will be announced tomorrow Friday too. Our apologies for the delay. We were figuring out who …

We're ramping up for our Grand Opening in a just a few days now. There's a great, big change you need to know about. From now on, we're only taking nominations from people we like. Fortunately, we're not terribly discriminating, so you're still invited back on Oct. 1. But wait, there's less. As in, you don't have to scroll through …

We have a really good friend over at Zooglobble, which does for kids music what many of us try to do for books.  In fact, Stefan, who runs the show, was a judge in Fiction Picture Books last year and counts himself a Cybils fan.  This year, he's asking our help for a very important and amazingly cool task. He's on a quest …

Help! I have a terrible problem. In nearly four years of trying I simply cannot think of a better title than "Cybils administrator." I tried "Cybils editor" but I don't do much of that anymore. "Cybils sherpa" was DOA. Who am I? If you're familiar with the contest and my efforts here and can think up a title that doesn't …

At least 40 people have emailed about judging. YES! I'm sorry I didn't program the gmail account to automatically reply: "Hey, thanks! We'll get back to you in a couple weeks. Fingers crossed for ya' …" So, consider yourselves officially thanked and responded to. Sorry 'bout that. -Anne

The call for judges will go out very, very soon. Like, about a day or so after this is posted. But I didn't want you to just skim through all the stuff there is to know. Please, pretty please, read this before diving into the whole judging thing. Overview There are two rounds of judging, and two types of judges.  …

We'll be fiddling with the new header and layout this week in preparation for the 2009 season.  Stay tuned …

Going to BEA? Lucky duck. Cybils and the KidLitosphere will be ably represented there by Pam Coughlin and Sheila Ruth. Here's some info Sheila sent into me about their fabulous presence there: Pam Coughlan and I are participating in a "Blogger signing" thing (like an author autographing session, except for bloggers) at the booth of the company responsible for NetGalley, …