What I Learned Recording My Audiobook
Plus a bunch of events where you can find me in the coming months.
Last fall, after receiving several requests for an audio version of my memoir—from people who prefer audiobooks, as well as people with sight issues—my publisher and I decided to go for it. We booked a week’s worth of sessions at Split Rock Recordings, where audio engineer Jason Sarubbi spends most of his days recording audiobooks for the Big Five. (The author after me was
.)I thought it would be fun, and I was right. I like using my voice—like being interviewed on the radio and podcasts, and also like to sing. I enjoyed working with Jason, who’s very professional, and also good company.
But I was anxious about my lack of experience as a voice actor. I’ve only listened to a handful of audio books, all fiction, and all very well done. Hearing the late William Hurt deftly perform every character in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises made me understand that book in a way I hadn’t before. After my late mother-in-law sang the praises of her favorite audiobook reader, Scott Brick, I listened to some of his work, including Keith Gessen’s All the Sad Young Literary Men, and it was impressive. (My mother-in-law, who preferred thrillers, listened to that one, too. Her review: “Not bad for a book with no murder in it.”)
Having listened to pros, I knew I was out of my depth in terms of performing the material, even though my book is nonfiction and I’m the one who wrote it. To read it really well, I would have needed a lot of rehearsal time, and maybe some training or coaching. I couldn’t manage either, so I just had to wing it and hope that my amateurishness would lend the project a sort of raw, genuine quality. 🤞🏼
I’m glad I went through with it, even though it’s far from perfect. It was harder than I expected. Reading aloud 75,000-ish words is tedious work! I got tongue-tied many times, as I do whenever I read aloud. My voice got hoarse toward the end of each session, but apparently it wasn’t bad enough that I had to do a lot of retakes. “Proofreading” it with my ears after it was done was torture, and made me want to never hear my own voice again.
I think the biggest thing I learned from the experience is that long, complex sentences that contain parenthetical thoughts are really difficult to voice. I apparently write a lot of them. You know that advice that many authors offer (myself included!) that you should read your work aloud before you publish it? Yeah, do that.
It was also a little terrifying reading aloud a book I’d struggled for literal decades to find the courage to write. I became self-conscious about every detail I’d previously felt self-conscious about. Again and again I thought, Oh, shit, did I share that embarrassing story in my book? I’ve since mostly gotten over it, and come to feel good again about sharing what I did. But I wasn’t prepared for how tender I’d feel saying all those…tender things.
I think the biggest thing I learned from the experience is that long, complex sentences that contain parenthetical thoughts are really difficult to voice. And I apparently write a lot of them. You know that advice many authors offer (myself included!) that you should read your work aloud before you publish it? Yeah, do that. I know I’d done it with passages of the book, but not the whole thing.
While recording the audio book, there were soooooo many sentences I wanted to break in two and streamline. I will keep this in mind when I write my next book. Which, happily, I am beginning to have ideas about. I’d worried that what’s happening had irreversibly turned off the creative part of my brain, so it’s a relief to discover that’s not the case.
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Another takeaway from the experience: While reading my book for the first time after receiving my mild autism diagnosis, I was able to really see that aspect of myself in what I wrote. Aside from my own suspicions about myself, my choice to pursue a diagnosis was influenced by three different readers who identify as autistic who’d read my book, then reached out to ask if I’d ever considered getting tested. Now, I could really see what they were talking about. That’s hardly all that my being a “weirdo” is about, but I’ll say this: it’s a bigger part than I knew.
Recently a few people have asked how my sort of “journey” with autism is going. After I got diagnosed, I chose to pause and just live with that information before exploring it further. Even though I’m not at all unhappy about the diagnosis, it was a lot to take in. In hindsight, I think I felt overwhelmed by it. I also decided at some point that I didn’t want to make mild autism my whole personality, so, at least for the moment, I’ve put it on the back burner.
Where I’m at now is looking at some of my differentness through that lens, and trying to make sense of it. It’s been interesting. I’m also aware now that I did some “masking” while being evaluated, out of nervousness and tentativeness about the whole endeavor. I suspect I’m maybe a little further along on the spectrum than I’ve allowed myself to be identified as. But I’m not up for more testing or other research right now. Maybe I’ll pursue the whole thing further at another time.
Gosh, I am about to be doing a lot of things. Here goes…
Friday, February 28th at 10am I’ll Be On a Panel at The Institute for Independent Journalists’ Online Conference, to be held Feb 27th & 28th.
My panel is called “The Power of the Pivot.” “At a certain point in freelancing, the routine gets old, your pitches aren’t landing, and you start to wonder: is it me? This session will explore how to know it’s time to change gears. Journalism recruiters and career coaches will share stories of a hard pivot: from one beat to another, out of journalism, or into a completely different field. Bring your soul-searching questions and wild ideas: we’ll get you started toward answers.”
On the evening of Friday, March 14th, I’ll be leading a short writing workshop at the Roscoe Library in the southern Catskills, hosted by The Hound Bookstore. I don’t have all the details yet, so stay tuned.
March 30th-April 4th I’ll be leading a workshop and giving a craft talk at the Southern Vermont Writers’ Conference, where there are still a few spots open.
On Sunday, April 6th I’ll be moderating a panel at The Woodstock Bookfest called “On Permission: Daring to Tell,” inspired by ’s wonderful forthcoming book, Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create. Participating will be Altman; Hyeseung Song, author of Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl; and Jonathan Lerner, author of Performance Anxiety: The Headlong Adolescence of a Mid-Century Kid. This is the first of THREE events I’ll be doing with Altman around the publication of Permission. This book couldn’t be more in my wheelhouse, and I am a big fan of hers, so I’m thrilled and honored to be taking part in a few of her events.
On Tuesday, April 8th from 8-9pm, I’ll be in conversation with Elissa Altman at Bookclub Bar, one of my favorite bookstores in Manhattan (where I launched my memoir in June, 2022, in conversation with the wonderful Julie Klam).
And on Monday, April 14th, from 6-7:30pm, I’ll be in conversation with Altman at Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, NY, my hometown indie. This is the first of a
reading/conversation series I’ll be conducting at Rough Draft.Elissa Altman and I will probably also do a Substack Live event, like I did last week with Ricki Lake, for Oldster. I’ll be sure to post details once we figure them out.
Saturday, May 3rd I’ll be moderating a panel on writing identity at ’s Open Secrets Live! symposium in Manhattan. It’s a great lineup.
On Weds., May 7th from 6:30 to 8:30, at the Starr Library in Rhinebeck, I’ll lead a writing workshop called “Writing Personal Essays that Resonate with Others.”
Congratulations on all the things! So impressive!
I was a trial lawyer so it resonated when I read your recognition that written work rarely flows as spoken word. It goes the other way around, too: think of rap music and pop songs, which hold our attention from the syncopation of the voice far more than the content of the piece. I read Kendrick lyrics and was baffled by the adulation—and then for the first time I saw the SB performance and was enthralled. When I prepared for closing arguments—the defense attorney’s sole opportunity to shine—I wrote some great, stirring stuff. Then I practiced in front of others and within minutes saw and felt the wrongness of every word.