Month: June 2016

Ira Glass on Storytelling – YouTube

via Ira Glass on Storytelling, part 3 of 4 – YouTube

Who doesn’t love Ira Glass? No hands raised. In this five-minute video, he absolutely nails the struggle of the artist, in my opinion; the gap between vision and creation. That seemingly insurmountable thing, whatever it is, that keeps an artist from achieving a work that actually expresses what they intended in all its nuance and effect, a work that resonates with those who experience it and satisfies and fulfills itself. What makes an artist continue for years striving to close the gap? I believe Ira’s answer is pretty clear. Love.

Many thanks to Karen Commins for surfacing this video.

Impressive Growth of Audiobooks

via Global Audiobook Trends and Statistics for 2016

A thorough and detailed December, 2015 article by Michael Kozlowski on Goodereader.com shares the continuing and dynamic growth and expansion of the Audiobook industry into 2016 and beyond. New players in the industry, new platforms, expanding technologies, new markets and distribution models, greater competition, impressive statistics, increasing demand for narrators, and in particular, (deep breath) reviewers. “There simply are not a lot of review websites that specialize in letting you know what new ones are worth listening to and what classics have been done by really good narrators. The average customer only knows what the front-page of Audible says is good or their local library. There needs to be significant investment in helping people discover great new content and blacklist titles.” Growth and opportunity for reviewers and bloggers, not to mention the increasing demand for great narration. Grab a cup and have some encouragement along with it.

Celebrating Five Years of Audiobook Creation

Happy Birthday, ACX. Can’t wait for the next chapter.

I’m an old radio guy and also an actor like many narrators. I cut my teeth editing magnetic tape. But I left performing and media many years ago when my daughter was born. Now, after 3 decades away from the microphone, I’m acting again and narrating audiobooks. ACX made it all possible. I had to relearn everything about production in general as well as all the new tools as I built my home studio and my learning platform was ACX. My 6th audiobook was just released this week and is doing well. Thank you, ACX, for all the knowledge, resources, opportunities, and assistance. Your help desk is awesome too. Happy birthday from a happy camper.

Character Voices

I’ve always played with accents and impersonations. They came naturally and quite frankly, they made me crack myself up. Not a lot of accents, but a few. Some fit my mouth quite nicely; the Middle Eastern sound was not one of them. But I’m in the ballpark.

One of the fun/challenging aspects of Omari and the People was that, in addition to the characters, the narrator also sounds Middle Eastern- ish, which makes him a character too in a sense. Something different from that normative sort of inside-your-head type voice. I like the added dimension and how it seems to enhance the storytelling somehow and make you wonder who he is. He’s the tribal historian. Like that wonderful Aussie narrator in the movie Road Warrior. I can never escape that image of the unseen storyteller doing “the tell” around the big tribal fire somewhere lost in the desert. I love romantic fantasy.

If you’re a listener, I’d be interested in hearing about what you need from the narrative voice.

New On Audible!

Fiction > Literary

Omari and the People by Stephen Whitfield, narration by Curt Simmons. A thief leads the survivors of a devastating fire into the desert in search of a new life.

5-Minute Sample

Omari and the People, Fiction or Fantasy?

At the time of this posting, the audiobook version of Omari and the People by Stephen Whitfield, which I narrate, has yet to be released. It will be coming out in a few days and both the author and I still struggle over the genre. That, in fact, is one of the things I love most about Stephen’s genre-bending work, i.e. the question of Fiction or Fantasy is at play for the reader/listener at the heart of the story. However, at this point, I’m not absolutely certain but I think Stephen and I agree that Omari is Magical Realism, a branch of Fiction. Of course, some will disagree with that as well as whether Magical Realism is a branch of Fiction. I like the position taken by Bruce Holland Rogers on Writing-World.com. What is Magical Realism, Really?  “Magical realism is not speculative and does not conduct thought experiments. Instead, it tells its stories from the perspective of people who live in our world and experience a different reality from the one we call objective… Magical realist fiction depicts the real world of people whose reality is different from ours… Magical realism leaves you with… the feeling that maybe this view is correct.” It will be interesting to see in which genre Audible decides to place Omari and the People, the audiobook.

Coming to Audible.com June, 2016

Omari

Trailer

Stephen Whitfield’s romantic desert fantasy is soon to be available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. The expected release date is prior to June 30, 2016. Set in antiquity, a city on the edge of the desert burns and a thief leads a large band of survivors into the desert in search of a new life.