I’ve just wrapped recording on my second full-length audiobook this month — David Wesley Williams lyrical novel of sex, family, and rock ‘n’ roll,Long Gone Daddies. As I was listening through just now, I realized that there were a lot of similarities between this bluesy book and my most recently completed (and soon-to-be-released) project, Uvi Poznansky’s Apart from Love. Both books dissect tangled, dysfunctional families featuring deeply fractured father-son relationships, each of which is hiding some very important secrets. And music is very much at the heart of each. Continue reading David Sings the Blues (and Other Classics)→
Second, in another first, Uvi Poznansky, who wrote the recently-released Stillpoint audiobook A Favorite Son(and whose audiobook for Apart from Love I’ve just finished editing — woohoo!) wrote a… um… poem about me.
Now, my mom’s a poet (and I’ll have more to say on that subject another time), so I’ve shown up in poems before before. Still. None (so far as I know) about me. This was incredibly touching. Here’s the poem, if you’d like to read it:
Every book has its own challenges — to the writer, to the editor, and to the audiobook producer. In A Favorite Son, Uvi told a story from a single point of view, but in two separate timeframes: first, of Yonkle (Jacob) as an old man, talking to his own eldest son, Reuben, which was told in the past tense; and second, of young Jacob, as he confronts first his brother Esav (Esau) and then his father Isaac.
As always, I had a blast creating the two distinct-yet-related voices (as well as voices for Esav the Hunter and the other characters). The challenge that Uvi and I worked on was how to meld the two — how to create transitions that made it clear what was happening. I’ll let Uvi narrate the process:
Author Uvi Poznansky, for whom I just produced the audiobook of her re-imagining of the Genesis story of Jacob and Esau, A Favorite Son, and with whom I’m in post-production on the audiobook for her bittersweet novel Apart from Love, is going going to be interviewed on Cowboy Wisdom NLI Radio tomorrow, April 2 at 8:00pm EST.
She’ll be talking about the two books on which we’ve worked together, as well as her other writing. She’s a fascinating lady — give it a listen!
A new Stillpoint Digital audiobook came out today!
A Favorite Son, one of two titles that I’ve been producing for author Uvi Poznansky, was released on Audible.com today; it’ll be available on Amazon and on iTunes over the next couple of days.
A Favorite Son is the wonderful re-imagining of the the biblical story of Jacob (Yonkle) and Esau (Esav). Here’s an extract that Uvi posted on her blog:
Are You Jealous?
“Are you jealous?” I tease him. “I can’t believe it!”
To which he roars, “You do nothing, you! You cook, you hide. Coward! Aha, coward you!”
He takes one step forward; I take two back. The arrows slung over his shoulder clink against each other. It is a steely, menacing sound. With one blow of his hand, he smacks down the canvas; and, on the double, the entire tent is flattened into a lopsided mess, collapsing upon itself; its pegs flying clear out, bouncing over and over, over the soft sand.
He gets in my face; we are standing nose to nose. The moment I have dreaded all my life is suddenly upon me, and there is no way to withdraw. I have to face him, which forces me to examine him closely.
This excerpt, in Yankle’s voice, captures the beginning of a dialog between him and his twin brother Esav, who is coming back from a day of hunt utterly famished, and tested to the limit of his wits by the smell of the lentil stew. Here is this snippet in audio:
Looking at that list, I thought, Huh, okay — all I need is a good introduction to producing your own audiobook.
Went to find it.
Couldn’t.
Well, I spoke with some friends at the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, where the unofficial motto is, If you can’t find the book you want, write it yourself. Asked folks if they thought that I should write a guide to audiobook production.
They did.
So I think I am. I’m thinking of calling it The Author’s Voice: A Writers Guide to Recording and Producing Audiobooks.
Looking at that list, I thought, Huh, okay — all I need is a good introduction to producing your own audiobook.
Went to find it.
Couldn’t.
Well, I spoke with some friends at the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, where the unofficial motto is, If you can’t find the book you want, write it yourself. Asked folks if they thought that I should write a guide to audiobook production.
They did.
So I think I am. I’m thinking of calling it The Author’s Voice: A Writers Guide to Recording and Producing Audiobooks.
Whether I’m flipping paper pages, scanning through an ebook, listening to an audiobook or reading into a mic, reading a book is reading a book. Or is it?
As much as anyone, I live through words. I’ve been a professional actor. I’ve edited books. I’ve written them. I’ve narrated audiobooks. I’ve designed ebooks. It would be reasonable to say my life centers around words — that my life centers around reading.
But what does that mean?
My earliest memories have to do with books: being read to by my parents, reading along to picture books narrated on scratchy 45s, hiding under my covers with a flashlight and The Hobbit or Encyclopedia Brown. Many of my dearest adult memories are book related: reading the same copy of Ender’s Game side-by-side with my soon-to-be-wife; reading Where the Wild Things Are to my first-born and realizing that I remembered every word, having not seen the book in twenty-five years; reading all seven of the Harry Potter books (and many others) aloud to each of my daughters.
I’m excited to be able to announce that Stillpoint has been signed to produce two new audiobooks for novelist Uvi Poznarsky. First up is A Favorite Son, Poznarsky’s retelling of the Genesis story of Jacob and Esav. Told through the eyes of Jacob — both as an old man and as a boy — the novella looks at the emotional challenges that come with Jacob’s assumption of Esav’s birthright, taking his brother’s place as the favorite son.
The other title — a very appropriate one for Valentine’s Day — is Poznarsky’s contemporary novel of a love that won’t be denied, Apart from Love. I’ll be producing this title, and sharing the narration duties with the wonderfully talented Heather Jane Hogan.
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