After last year’s overlong, incredibly boring ceremony where hardly any winners bothered to show up to the Museum of Natural History to accept prizes, the Quills is changing things in a big way. AP’s Hillel Italie reports that instead of all the categories being voted on by fans, now only the Book of the Year is open to the public. Booksellers and librarians will do virtually all the deciding for the other nineteen categories.
“We wanted to streamline consumer participation and add to the credibility of those who are named winners,” Quills founder and chairman Gerry Byrne said Thursday, adding that the decision had been made after consulting with publishers and NBC Universal Television Stations, which again will air the event. Byrne said this fall’s ceremony will be shorter, around an hour and a half, and simpler, as all winners except Book of the Year will be announced online on September 10, a month in advance of the ceremony to be held Oct. 22 at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.