Last week we brought you an exclusive interview between narrator Karen White and author Ellery Adams. This week we bring you a twist on the interview with the fans of Ellery Adams asking Karen White some questions!
Ellery did a Facebook post asking her fans for questions about audiobooks. Several people asked similar questions, so we grouped those together in the post.
Laura, Terry and Donna all had questions about how Karen got started as an audiobook narrator: When and how did you decide that narration work would be something you wanted to do? How did you get started? Do you consider yourself to be a performer or actor and did you “plan” to be a narrator? I think this interview will be fun! How did you get into this business?
I had the wonderful opportunity of interviewing C.S.E. Cooney. Ms. Cooney is an in house narrator at Tantor and her smile and personality lights up the place. It is always a great day when she is here recording. She is very talented, and I am thrilled to share her interview with everyone.
C.S.E Cooney
How did you get into narrating?
This is a question that people have been asking since I landed my job at Tantor back in April! I find it tricky, because there is no short answer. Some of it was luck: right place, right time, right email address. But to get to that time and place and email address, I spent two years stopping everyone I met who had any connection whatsoever with the audiobook industry to say, “I want to do this; how do I do this?” Some of it is my BA in Fiction Writing with an Acting minor from Columbia College Chicago (a peculiar combination of education that makes this job peculiarly ideal). I began by narrating for such short-form fantasy podcasts such as Uncanny Magazine, Podcastle, Tales to Terrify, and Goblin Fruit.
Mostly though, after looking into a job as a proofer for Tantor, I heard from a friend—at the time employed in that same position—that the company was also looking for narrators. I sent in an email with an audition reel, made an appointment to audition, and landed a trial run with two cozy mysteries (later mentioned). After that, I got a 13-week contract, and found myself booked through the summer and early fall doing the Best Job Ever. It was the most glorious, double lightning strike of luck and work.
What was your favorite audiobook to narrate?
Well… I think that’s a toss-up between Combat Ready Kitchen and Tales from the Back Row. This surprised even me, for I read and write fiction primarily, and these were two of only three non-fiction books I narrated. I felt like I was learning loads of interesting things in the process—not just about narrating, but about cheese bacteria, and New York City Fashion week—and on a very basic sentence level, I found the sentences conversational and cathedral-like. Sometimes in fiction a sentence can get very basic, making way for a forward-driven plot, snappy dialogue, and colorful characters. With these two memoirs/histories, the focus was on conveying new and often useful information with clarity and beauty and wit; I found it extraordinary.
Tantor Media 