Charles Bice and I sent a few questions to Then We Saw the Flames author Daniel A. Hoyt, and the next thing you know, I’m considering booking a trip to Dresden, enrolling in the MFA programme at Kansas State University, and have bought a hundred dollars’ worth of books.  Thanks, Dan, and just let me know where to send my expense reports!  Meanwhile, here’s Dan and Charles:

Charles Bice: Hi, Dan. You’ve created an amazing collection of thirteen stories in Then We Saw the Flames. Each seems drawn from a completely different place, as if written by a different talented writer. What process do you go through in creating a story?

Daniel A. Hoyt: I try to give each story its own shape, and ideally that shape is related to meaning and to character. I’m not a linear writer: I tend to start with an image or a moment, and then I add more sentences, paragraphs, and scenes in a collage-like way. Slowly I find a style that fits the piece. From there, I figure out where the story will end, so I know my destination: I write towards that ending. This process allows me to tap into voices and characters in an organic way, to live with them, to give the story over to them.

Author Daniel A. Hoyt

CB: A number of your characters are in a sense displaced. They are immigrants, like Amar and Tiananmen, or marginalized, as in Black Box, or neglected and far from home, as in El Americanito and Boy, Sea, Boy. What sorts of experiences or inspirations led you to create these characters and situations?

DH: I am often inspired in new ways when I’m on the margins, say, when I’m traveling in foreign countries. “Amar” came out of a visit to Dresden. I arrived a day after a minor riot at a punk rock show, and I remember having a bad head cold. I wandered around the city in the spring rain, and the neighborhood where I was staying had all kinds of kebab shops run by immigrants. I was there, but I wasn’t part of Dresden, not really. I use the margins as a position of inquiry, but my characters are trapped somehow, and that helps drive the conflict. “El Americanito” came from a trip to Acapulco for a wedding; Tiananmen sprang out of a desire to write a story called “House of Pancakes,” which eventually became “The Chez du Pancakes”; and “Boy, Sea, Boy” was inspired by a line from the excellent New Yorker pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones (about a Slint song). I try to be open to all kinds of story ideas. I like moments that I don’t quite compute, when I’m on the margins of understanding.

CB: How did the audio production of the stories match up with what you might have heard in your mind’s ear as you were writing?

Narrator Charles Bice

DH: I’m so grateful for the thoughtful and rich work that you put into the narration. I read my work aloud a lot because sentence rhythm is so important to me. I’ve probably read these stories to myself five times each, and I feared I’d just be sick of them, but it was an absolute treat to hear them from a new voice. It put a slightly different spin on things, like hearing a cover of a song you haven’t heard in years, and I love cover songs. Sometimes you would read a sentence with some different cadence, which made the line snap differently, but most of all, you’re so adept at voices that the characters took on another and bolder layer of life. I got to meet them again and from a different angle.

CB: Have you tried your hand at writing novels? How would your approach to a novel be different than for a short story collection?

DH: I have a couple of novels in progress, and the novel form requires me to think about both process and progress in different ways. I’m a slow writer, but there’s a certain point with a short story, when I’m about 80 percent done, when I can immerse myself in a piece for a long weekend and really live in the story. (That works best when my wife’s out of town, but the pets get awful lonesome when I do this. I imagine them saying, “Earth to Dan,” and flicking their paws in my face.) I haven’t exactly nailed my own process for novel writing, and that’s one of the issues I’ve thought a lot about in my teaching. The academy encourages short stories, and the publishing industry asks for novels. I love short stories, and I wish the form had more readers, but I feel that graduate students should be encouraged to start writing novels earlier on. That’s one of the great things about teaching at Kansas State University. We have a class in novel writing, which is an all-too-rare offering in creative writing programs.

CB: You teach creative writing at Kansas State University. How has your experience in crafting this collection shaped your teaching—and vice versa?

DH: I try to get my students to embrace the work and the joy of seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, of living a different life for a while. I encourage my students to write about things they want to learn. Toward the end of the semester in an advanced class, I also use anecdotes about my collection to help explore some of the nuts and bolts of the writing life. I’ll talk about how long I worked on a story (months to years) and how many literary magazines rejected it, and I’ll talk about an early draft of a story and then the finished piece to make some points about revision. These anecdotes are stories about craft and the publishing world, but they’re also little odes to patience.

CB: When it’s the last class of the term and those budding writers are moving onward, what is the one nugget of writing advice that you want them to take away with them?

DH: I want my students to respect words and to love them, to read things out loud and hear the snap and twist of a sentence, to push beyond the line everyone’s heard before. If you’ve seen if before, re-write it: Make it something new.

Miette Elm: Do you listen to many audiobooks? If so, what are some of the best you’ve heard, and when do you find time to listen?

DH: I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks, which is more of a condition of my lifestyle rather than a commentary on the form. We live close to campus (we did at my previous academic position, too), so I walk to work every day, and sometimes I go weeks without driving. I’m not a headphone dude. I like to hear the world as I walk through it. My affiliation with Iambik, however, has inspired me to listen to more. I have J. Robert Lennon’s Castle ready for the next drive to Kansas City.

ME: Are you working on any writing projects now? What’s next?

DH: Those aforementioned novel projects are still swirling around, but my primary focus has been a new collection of short stories. The working title is Famous Women, Famous Men, and all of the stories deal with some kind of famous figure (Dickens and Van Gogh, for example) or someone dealing with unexpected celebrity or someone coming in contact with the “famous.” There’s a story about Hemingway impersonators that’s forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, I’m headed to Spain later this summer to write about Goya, and I have a couple of stories in progress that deal with digital fame: the curse of YouTube. This collection should have almost as many voices as Then We Saw the Flames, but I suspect most readers will see more overt thematic connections. I hope to have this collection ready to shop to university publishers and perhaps agents by the end of the fall.

ME: We take great pleasure in looking for sharp contemporary literary fiction that more mainstream audio publishers overlook. Who are we missing? What are some titles you’d love to see turned into audio?

DH: The first thing that comes to mind is people I know (either well or just via e-mail) whose books I love. Jerry Gabriel’s Drowned Boy (Sarabande), Darren Defrain’s Inside & Out (Main Street Rag), and Jeff Parker’s Ovenman (Tin House) quickly come to mind. My colleague Katy Karlin’s collection Send Me Work is forthcoming from Northwestern University Press, and it would make a great audiobook. I’d also love to see Iambik create some kind of literary magazine sampler, where new stories (and new writers) from places like The Kenyon Review or Indiana Review or Parcel could reach new audiences.

Then We Saw the Flames

Daniel A. Hoyt’s Juniper Award winning Then We Saw the Flames, published in print by the University of Massachusetts Press, is available from Iambik as an audiobook for only $6.99.  You can also buy it as part of our Complete Literary Fiction Collection 3 of 6 titles for $29.99.

And, if you stop dawdling, you can still get 50% off any order by entering #jiam2011 at checkout through the end of June 2011. If you haven’t looked at a calendar lately, the end of June 2011 will happen in another several hours.  Hurry up!

One day soon, I will ask you to guess how many Iambik audiobooks Charles Bice has produced, and it will be not unlike those jellybeans-in-the-jar guessing games.  Today, that tally rests at 8 audiobooks, or over 52 hours of audio.

Now, I could issue one of those tired tropes about Charles Bice Clones, or Charles Bice Robot Factories producing all these books.  But the truth is, no robot could come anywhere near Charles’ suave delivery and pitch-perfect narration.  As you’ll read below, creating innumerable volumes of great audiobooks is seemingly all done before breakfast, if you’re Charles Bice:

Miette Elm: First off, what are you up to? What titles have you recently wrapped, what are you in the middle of, and how’s it going?
Charles Bice:  Iambik has kept me busy for much of the first half of the year. With next month’s release of Richmond Noir, I’ll have nine Iambik titles out since January. I’ve just completed a performance of The Art of War for a company that has developed a cool app allowing you to listen to the audio while the ebook automatically scrolls along with the text.

When I’m not recording audiobooks or other narration, I’m usually writing. With three novels in print and a fourth fully drafted, I decided to do a little side project with digital publishing where I combine my writing and my narration. To that end I just finished a short children’s book, Storytime Adventure in the Land of the Walking Trees, and am distributing it as a bundle using the Amazon Kindle store.

Another audio-related endeavor I have is a daily ‘poemcast’ on charlesbice.com, called The Pause for Poetry. It’s great fun.

Charles Bice

ME: Anything stand out as the most notable sentence or paragraph you’ve narrated?
CB: Sometimes for me the voice of a character rings off the page just as clearly as if the flesh-and-blood version has walked into the room me. This was the case with the voice of Andrew Whitaker in Sam Savage’s The Cry of the Sloth. I was smiling and even laughing aloud from the opening sentences. The brilliant thing is that the humor doesn’t stem from overtly funny sentences and phrases but instead from having them emanate from this subtly revealed, imperious, deluded character. We all know people who for whatever reason can make us laugh just by talking—saying the most matter-of-fact things. Creating such a character on paper is a terrific feat of writing, and I had a great time working on that project.

ME: Care to share a memorable comment you’ve received about your voice or narration talents?
CB: I’ve had a few compliments on my character voices and accents. Sometimes I think I overdo them to tell you the truth, but it’s fun to let loose that inner cartoon character every once in a while.

ME: What are the world’s top 5 sounds? What are the worst?
CB: The main character in John Barth’s The End of the Road suffered from a debilitating affliction known (in the novel at least) as cosmopsis. He experienced a state of near paralysis when faced with making choices. As I may be coming down with a touch of it myself, I’d better just give you my favorite and least favorite. Otherwise I might be stuck for days.

Favorite: The silence that befalls a symphony orchestra as the conductor steps onto the podium and raises the baton.

Least favorite: Heavy diesel trucks rumbling past my studio during recording.

ME: Of any book ever published, what’s your dream title to narrate (even if your voice wouldn’t be a good match)?
CB:  Oh, dear—more cosmopsis. One of my all-time favorite reads from my youth is Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe. I think it would be a joy to work on that— and to relocate my North Carolina accent.

Have your pick of Charles’ projects for Iambik, or keep an eye on his website to know what he’s up to.  These and all our titles can be yours at a 50% discount through the end of June 2011 (that’s only a couple of days!) by entering #jiam2011 when prompted at checkout.

Stay tuned as Charles and author Daniel A. Hoyt discuss crafting a short story collection and the voices in an authors head, coming tomorrow.

When I heard Cori Samuel was to read Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, I had no idea how she was going to pull it off. For starters, the text translates to over 17 hours of audio.   The book is set in America and features a highly imagined rendering of the (male) scientists responsible for the creation of the atom bomb.   Cori’s an English lady.  You see?  No way.

But Cori is something special, the pairing of text with voice was oddly perfect, and the resulting audiobook is truly one of Iambik’s treasures.  And as you’ll read below, putting her voice behind less-than-obvious titles is one of Cori’s natural talents.  Here’s Cori Samuel:

Miette Elm: First off, what are you up to? What titles have you recently wrapped, what are you in the middle of, and how’s it going?
Cori Samuel:  I’m currently recording Frankenstein for librivox.org. It’s been on my To Do list for a while, because I’ve long been a fan of Mary Shelley and of this story in particular — the book is so different to any of the film versions. Also, because the story is narrated by three male characters, as far as I could see it’d always been recorded by men in the past; so I wanted to try and bring something of the author’s own voice to it. An unknowable, impossible goal, of course, but I’m enjoying the process enormously anyway. I put it on hold earlier this year to record Around the World in Stilettos for Iambik, which was a very hard transition to make: classic horror to modern comedy-romance. I ended up buying several pairs of shoes to get me into the right mood, including an unwalkable-but-gorgeous pair of shiny black stilettos, that I perched next to the mic while I recorded. That’s the last book I finished. Poor Frankie needs to be paused again now, so I can record another Iambik romance in the next couple of months – though I’m not yet sure how I’m going to set the mood for that one (see also below.) Hopefully I’ll finish Frankenstein by the end of August.

Cori Samuel

ME: Anything stand out as the most notable sentence or paragraph you’ve narrated?
CS: My first Iambik book quotes some rather saucy lyrics from “Bad Touch” by the Bloodhound Gang. I’m used to recording older, public domain books, so to read something so vibrant and modern was great, and those particular lines make me laugh every time I hear that song. And my next Iambik recording project, begins: “My grandfather’s left me his nose. It’s in a matchbox.” I love that opening, but the very best lines are far too naughty to quote here — I’m really looking forward to working on it!

ME: Care to share a memorable comment you’ve received about your voice or narration talents?
CS: It’s always nice when someone’s willing to hear you read the phonebook — to me, that’s one marker of having ‘arrived’ as a narrator and someone said that to me for the first time fairly recently. I also really appreciated this blog comment from a Californian mom: “I had to smile with delight when my eight year old daughter was swirling around in her room imitating your lovely accent after listening to your audio that day.” How great is that! Anglophilia starting early over there.

ME: What are the world’s top 5 sounds? What are the worst?
CS: Best:

• Laughter, particularly the gurgly-baby kind.
• Cats’ purring.
• Boiling water being poured onto tea-leaves.
• Alan Rickman’s voice.

Worst:

• Anything that one hears with one’s gut, rather than the ears (like screams, for instance)
• Car alarms.
• Running water when I KNOW nothing should be leaking / dripping …
• The doorbell sounding when I’m in the shower

ME: Of any book ever published, what’s your dream title to narrate (even if your voice wouldn’t be a good match)?
CS:  I’d love to record A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes. It’s something like Lord of the Flies, only it adds girls, pirates and sailing ships — and is more psychological than visceral. It’s just wonderful. I don’t think my voice would be a terrible match, so if I cross my fingers really, really tightly …

As Cori mentioned, she’s got new Iambik titles coming soon.  If you’re on our mailing list, you’ll know when that time comes.  You can also keep track of her recordings at her website, or by following @CoriS on Twitter.  Cori’s first title for Iambik, Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet, is available for only $5.99 as part of our very first Literary Fiction Collection (the whole collection is only $49.99.  Have a look.).  As you know by now, all our titles can be yours at a 50% discount throughout June 2011 by entering the code #jiam2011 when prompted at checkout.

Here’s my challenge for you, discerning readers and listeners of fine audio literature:  I challenge you to read Anita’s oozing-with-charisma answers to my questions below, and try to resist her innumerable charms.

Actually, don’t try that.  You won’t be able to, you won’t want to, and you might hurt yourself in the process.  Presenting Anita Roy Dobbs, narratrix of Amphibian, by Carla Dunn.

Miette Elm: First off, what are you up to? What titles have you recently wrapped, what are you in the middle of, and how’s it going?
Anita Roy Dobbs:  I just finished my first audiobook, Amphibian, in time for the latest Literary Fiction collection. You know how we learn most from our mistakes? Well, that was graduate-level learning, oy. I’m so glad that it was Amphibian I lived with for those months of spending far too much time on every minute of the recording. I long to sit down with folks who have read (or listened to!) the book and discuss Carla Gunn’s gifted juggling of themes and tone, her storytelling that’s profound enough for (older) children (watch out, it features the F-word) and entertaining enough for adults. It is a lovely book – humorous, touching, multi-faceted, warm – to have labored over.

But next up is the first in a series of four books – a series I’ve already lived with for over a decade. If I’m to manage all four, I’ll need a quantum leap in efficiency. Mmm, literally. It’s Fire Logic, first in the Elemental Logic Series by Laurie J. Marks, a fantasy rooted in modern problems, staked on vivid, strong-frail characters. I’m trying to be succinct but likely sound markety, eh? It has a challenging cast of characters needing distinct voices. That means I’m embarking on post-graduate work here. Oh, the mistakes I’m about to make!

So it’s going like this: I work more than full-time and narrate between leaf-blowers in the evenings, mornings, and weekends. I’m halfway through switching all my recording gear and (if the software ever arrives) learning a completely new (and appealingly geeky) recording technique. Hmm, better get back to those tutorials I have bookmarked…

Anita Roy Dobbs

ME: Anything stand out as the funniest sentence or paragraph you’ve narrated?
ARD: Nothing of that sort, but what that question brings to mind is an … awkward chapter I read for LibriVox.org in a book I wasn’t familiar with. I discovered that a whole section was racist – I was going to say dreadfully racist, but that suggests there’s another kind, like graciously racist. I wanted to state a disclaimer, skip the passages, back out on the chapter, anything but read it like a proper narrator. So I went flat, or sour-flat, or whatever affect that bad taste in my mind caused in my mouth. And even today, my skin crawls that I read those passages into the public domain. (I think I should have backed out.)

ME: Care to share a memorable comment you’ve received about your voice or narration talents?
ARD: I’ll cheat a little on this one, too. I once received an email about something I’d read for LibriVox, and it seemed to say that the writer was so, mmm, responsive to something that I’d read, because of the way I read it, that he couldn’t express it just then, but it was important and he would try again later. He didn’t. So I could be wrong in my interpretation! But here’s the cheating part — I have had what I will clumsily call important responsiveness to a handful of narrators, or even a hand-not-quite-full. Tip of the pinnacle for me is Nigel Planer. His sheer intelligence as a reader – every instant spot-on, every skill of characterization mastered beyond mastery – just rivets me each time I re-re-re-re-re-listen to every recording he’s made. So that’s my strange and puzzling compliment to my world’s greatest narrator: I am importantly responsive to your narration, Nigel Planer, and wish I could express myself as intelligently as you narrate (or do ANYthing that intelligently).

ME: What are the world’s top 5 sounds? What are the worst?
ARD: Erg. Hmmm … after long thought:

Top: the tiny teeny itsy sounds a newborn makes in the first days; my mother’s voice as remembered; wind or rain in a full canopy of leaves; whale song; “Ah-ha!”

Worst sounds I’ve heard: that retching sound when nothing will come up but must; screeching brakes (typically on buses I’ve been waiting for); any wounded animal (including us); patronizing, dismissive, marginalizing tones in all their variety; spiteful hatred, snarled or raged.

And I am delighted to report that in Amphibian, young Phineas William Walsh will tell you precisely what the world’s top five most disliked sounds are, as discovered by researchers.

Worst sounds I’ve never heard: cries of terror; near-to-hand explosions; a tsunami wave crashing / tornado winds approaching / hurricane overhead / massive earthquake rumbling / volcano errupting.

ME: Of any book ever published, what’s your dream title to narrate (even if your voice wouldn’t be a good match)?
ARD:  How I wish I knew every book ever published. Wow. That’s a pauser. Since I was a child, standing in the library — the little, little, local, two-room library in Moundsville, West Virginia — I’ve enjoyed the recurring fleeting fantasy of absorbing alllllll those books into my knowing.

So I think, if I must narrow it down to one title, it’s the Encyclopædia Britannica. And I’m pretty unsuited for that. 🙂

Anita’s first title for Iambik, Carla Dunn’s Amphibian (published in print by Coach House Books), is available for only $6.99 as part of our Third Literary Fiction collection.  Along with all Iambik titles, it can be yours at a 50% discount throughout June 2011 by entering the code #jiam2011 when prompted at checkout.

If you didn’t catch James Greer’s The Failure, released with our 2nd Literary Fiction Collection, you should forgive yourself now and go get it.

While you’re working on the finer points of self-forgiveness, narrator Tadhg Hynes and I had a few questions for author James Greer.  Tadhg, of course, has excellent, thoughtful questions about structure and characterisation and message, while I hummed David Bowie songs.  Take a look:

Tadhg Hynes: You open the book more-or-less at the end of the story, but then take us back and forth through a shifting non-linear timeline. How did this come about? Did you write it in narrative chronological order? How did you decide to splice it where you did?

James Greer: I wrote the first chapter and the last chapter first. Then I wrote the rest of the book, in pretty much any order I felt like, because I had the plot in my head. When I was finished, I printed the whole thing out (it was a little longer then, maybe 50 chapters), stapled each chapter separately, and laid them out in a giant 5×10 grid on the floor. Then I walked around the grid and physically re-ordered the chapters according to rhythm, length, and so on. I think I was influenced most by watching movies in the construction of The Failure. When you edit film these days, you generally use a set-up (combination of hardware and software) called an NLE, or non-linear editing system. As its name indicates, this tends to produce, or at least makes it easier to produce, non-linear narratives. Of course, filmmakers were editing asynchronously long before the wide-spread use of NLEs. Jean-Luc Godard is a master of non-linear construction, and I was watching a lot of Godard movies around the time I was writing The Failure.

The Mysterious Tadhg Hynes

TH: I really enjoyed recording this book– how do you feel about having your work read to you? Have you listened to the audiobook?
JG: I enjoyed listening to it a lot more than I would have if I’d chosen an American narrator. Your Irish lilt allowed just enough linguistic distance to eliminate the cringe factor of hearing your own words read to you. I prefer listening to you read my book than listening to me read my book. You make my words sound better.

TH: While working on this book my proof-listener and I found it really humorous. But it defies genre – there are elements of noir and crime fiction, of parody, of satire, of romance, and underlying all of these is the humour. I know many writers hate to categorise themselves, but if you had to for this book, how would you?
JG: I would, if pressed, call The Failure picaresque, a once-common Spanish sub-genre that has fallen into disuse. Or Icaresque, which is not a word but should be. Neither are strictly accurate but better than the alternatives, I think.

TH: Several of the characters are spookily like people I know (especially Guy’s mother). Have any of your friends recognised themselves in the book? What’s been the reaction?
JG: Every character in the book was entirely a product of my imagination. I don’t know how people go about basing characters on real people. I’m sure it’s commonly done but I can’t do it. That said, I recognize parts of myself in every one of the characters in The Failure. I’d like to think that because I’m an entirely ordinary person the resonance that you and others might encounter is derived from our common humanity. But I may be over-thinking that bit. The stricture to “write what you know” has always confounded me. It seems to me the worst possible advice to give a writer.

Author James Greer

TH: On my first reading, The Failure came across as a pretty light-hearted book. However as I reread it I became more aware of the serious social commentary. Was this by design? Did you intend for the humour to sit atop the more serious matters? Do you think the audiobook achieves the same layering?
JG: I’d hate to think there was any serious social commentary in The Failure, but I do think there are serious themes underlying the humor. And while I’m not sure that was something I set out to do, my tendency is to try to balance the ridiculous and the sublime. My congenital inability to take anything seriously inevitably undercuts any serious point I ever try to make. At the same time I have a tendency towards melodrama and sentimentality that I can’t always resist. Or that I’ve stopped trying to resist.

TH: Writing novels is just one of your talents; you’re also involved in films and music. Do you have a favourite? If you could only make art in one medium, which would you choose?
JG: Writing has always and will always come first. I love music, I love films, but I am compelled to write.

TH: Finally, what’s next? What do you have coming up, or what are you working on now?
JG: My next novel is half-way done. It’s as different from The Failure as The Failure is from my previous novel, Artificial Light. I tend to work in opposition to myself, for whatever reason.

Miette Elm: You don’t seem to shy away from social media– you blog, you keep Twitter and Facebook accounts, and you’re on Goodreads. And, for those readers who don’t know, the Internet is central to the plot of The Failure (note to those readers: this is not an internet book, honest! Unless you want it to be, of course…) Do these tools impact your writing? How?
JG: Oh, I shy away, believe me. Last year I deleted my Facebook account when I was approaching 5,000 friends and realized I didn’t know more than a few hundred, and even those few hundred not very well. I also stopped blogging for almost a year. Twitter I started up a few months ago at the same time I decided to revamp and relaunch my site, and re-join Facebook. I’m not sure if any of this is useful, but I do it to promote my books and am otherwise appalled and creeped out by online self. I think that same fascination/horror underlies the internet aspect of The Failure’s plot (leaning hard on the metaphorical sense of “plot”). The two main characters, Guy and Billy, don’t own cellphones or computers and don’t seem to understand the internet very well, despite their plans (or Guy’s plans) to exploit it. Guy reminds me of an 1849 California gold-seeker. He’s heard about the untold riches awaiting even inexperienced prospectors, but has no real clue how to mine for gold, nor, I think, any real desire. He’s self-defeating in the best sense. If not for the evil manipulations of the author he would probably have run off with Violet and lived happily ever after.

ME: The Failure contains offset ads, physics equations, and other typographic elements that, coupled with its non-linear narrative, might make it difficult to turn into a linear audiobook form. I think Tadhg did a fantastic job, of course, but did you have any reservations about allowing the book to be interpreted this way?
JG: None whatsoever, though in retrospect I should have. Early on, Tadgh emailed me in consternation when he got to the chapter that consists of several hundred nonsense words that purport to contain a subliminal ad. The solution he arrived at was both elegant and funny, in keeping with the spirit of the book. I like to think the non-linear construction makes it in some ways easier for the audibook listener, because if you forget where you are and jump in randomly, you won’t really have missed anything. There’s nothing to miss. That’s probably just wishful thinking on my part, though. But I am hugely indebted to Tadgh for finding clever ways around the problems you describe.

ME: The Failure opens with an awfully melodic first line: Guy Forget – careening across Larkin Heights in a stolen Mini Cooper – suffused with bloodlust and baring a grin full of teeth, failed to hear the polyphonic belling of his cell phone. To me, it looks as if it’s meant to be voiced, and very much looks like it could be set to music and sung. Really, try it. It works well to David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World, and I’m not saying that for narrative verisimilitude. So what effect does your work as a musician and music journalist have on your fiction writing?
JG: To me the musicality of writing is entirely different from music. Music is choreographed math, and acts on our emotions directly, wordlessly, where writing organizes phonemes into strings of sense, even when clearly designed to prioritize sound over meaning, as in the first line of The Failure. I suppose that in both instances one tries to manipulate the listener/reader, but there’s no way (at least none that I have discovered) to reproduce the polyphony of music in writing, and similarly no way to reproduce the specificity/precision of language in music. But you’re absolutely correct that the sentences over which I take the most care are meant to be voiced, whether out loud or in the head. Writing and reading done properly produce a physical reaction not dissimilar to the reaction you might have listening to [favorite song or piece of msuic]: a pleasurable shiver that’s the only way I know how to judge great writing or great music.

James Greer’s The Failure, published in print by Akashic Books, is available from Iambik as an audiobook for only $6.99.  You can also buy it as part of our Complete Literary Fiction Collection 2 of 12 titles for $49.99. Plus, throughout June 2011, you can get 50% off any order by entering #jiam2011 at checkout.

You’re in for a treat as we’ll soon be launching our first title narrated by the silky sounds of Xe Sands.  I’m warning you, though: once her voice enters your head, you might not be able to live without it.  Meet Xe:

Miette Elm: First off, what are you up to? What titles have you recently wrapped, what are you in the middle of, and how’s it going?
Xe Sands:  Well, thankfully, it has been a dead run since February, and I couldn’t be happier. I cannot stand being idle – it just isn’t in my nature.

I’ve just wrapped on the first two books in two separate series for Tantor Audio: the Dreg City series by Kelly Meding (Three Days to Dead, As Lie the Dead); and the Nightwalkers series by Jacquelyn Frank (Jacob, Gideon). I head into the studio shortly to record the third in the Dreg City series, Another Kind of Dead, for simultaneous release with the print version in early August. Immediately afterward, I start on books 3-5 in the Nightwalkers series, heading toward book six, set for simultaneous release with the print version in October.

And, I just finished the final round of corrections on Step on a Crack by Mary Anderson, for Iambik Audio, which was a wonderful young adult book focusing on repressed memory and familial relationships.

Xe Sands

ME: Anything stand out as the funniest sentence or paragraph you’ve narrated?
XS: There have been some hilarious lines in the Dreg City series, none of which can be printed here – LOL!

Some of the most amazing lines I’ve ever read, let alone narrated, come from The Sweet Relief of Missing Children. There are so very many that reached out and grabbed me that it is difficult to choose, but these were two of my favorites to narrate:

“Anything can happen in ten minutes. One can cook an egg or fall in love or lose a fortune or make a pot of coffee or be born or find God or leave god or fall out of love or die. One can find the right girl or the wrong girl. One can fail to know the difference.”

“Wait. She hasn’t married him yet. Let her be sixteen a little longer. Let her paint stag beetles and Black-Eyed Susans. Let her fantasize about Paris, the Galapagos, Jakarta, Berlin. See the books she reads: Amelia Earhart, Emily Dickinson, detective stories meant for prepubescent boys. She is so young. She is so wrong about herself. Give her the gift of false convictions, just a little longer, a paragraph.”

ME: Care to share a memorable comment you’ve received about your voice or narration talents?
XS: I was hoping to remember something really odd or strange or quirky, but the one that keeps popping up is none of those things. I’m sharing it anyway because I love it so much, and hope you will just bear with me.

A listener recently wrote that I have a voice like slow whiskey and chocolate. I’m going to put that on a t-shirt and wear it in my studio.

ME: What are the world’s top 5 sounds? What are the worst?

Top.

• My husband’s heartbeat, as heard when my head is against his chest
• Sound of my daughter breathing in her sleep
• Buzzing of bumblebees (those ginormous ones that can barely fly)
• Thunderstorms (scary can be beautiful)
• The first few notes of the song that currently turns me inside out

Worst.

• Animal grooming sounds
• Mouth noises
• Trickling water
• High pitched mechanical noises
• Lawnmowers and airplanes (when I’m trying to record – grrr)

ME: Of any book ever published, what’s your dream title to narrate (even if your voice wouldn’t be a good match)?
XS:  There are simply too many to pick a one and true answer for ever and always, so I will share the one I would pick today: Real Life and Liars, by Kristina Riggle. Her work is so poignant and yet realistic, with characters that are beautifully drawn, flaws and all. I can always relate to something in each of them and I cherish that as a narrator.  The point of view also changes between the first-person perspective of several family members and the third-person narration, which would be a wonderful challenge.

Xe’s first title for Iambik, Mary Anderson’s Step on a Crack, will be released soon.  In the meantime, you can hear the sounds of slow whiskey and chocolate yourself with this sneak preview of the first chapter.  To keep track of Xe’s other projects, follow her on Twitter @xesands. And while you’re waiting, all Iambik titles can be picked up with a 50% discount throughout June 2011 by entering #jiam2011 at checkout.

Next up for five questions is the illustrious Tadhg Hynes, our velvet-voiced Dubliner whose unwavering narratorial conviction and rhythmic timbre make him a favourite for many. Tadhg’s most recent release for Iambik is James Greer’s The Failure, “a sublime and shivery-smooth literary hat-trick-cum-emotional-gotcha.” Here’s what Tadhg’s up to:

Miette Elm: First off, what are you up to? What titles have you recently wrapped, what are you in the middle of, and how’s it going?
Tadhg Hynes: I’ve recently finished The Failure by James Greer, a quirky crime/comedy caper, very enjoyable to record and well written. Also, my first SciFi title, Open Your Eyes by Paul Jessup.  In the public domain world, I recently finished a reading of David Copperfield for Librivox.

At the moment I’m working on two titles.

The first is Daughter of Darkness by Janet Woods. Set in the 1750s it begins with a Viscount being duped into marrying the 14 year old daughter of his family’s enemy, a really nasty piece of work…….

The second is The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. I’m really glad to have the opportunity to record this classic, a must-read for lovers of words.

What a privilege it is to record these wonderful and wide ranging books. Work (I don’t think so!)

Who Is Narrator Tadhg Hynes?

ME: Anything stand out as the funniest sentence or paragraph you’ve narrated?
TH: One of my favourite humorous lines (with more than a grain of truth in it) is this one from Far From The Madding Crowd:
It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting
out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon
marriage as a short cut that way, but it has been known to fail.

ME: Care to share a memorable comment you’ve received about your voice or narration talents?
TH: I love my daughter’s reaction when I’m listening back to a chapter I’m working on. I usually listen on my iPod in the kitchen or garden and when asked where dad is her answer is “Oh, he’s out there talking to himself again”

ME: What are the world’s top 5 sounds? What are the worst?

Top.
My wife’s laughter (especially when I make her laugh).
The dawn chorus.
Once upon a time…
Dinner’s ready
“Hi Dad”

Worst.
“The end.”
The dawn chorus (I do most of my recording between 5am and 7am and in May and June it can be difficult)
A strange noise at night (I usually pretend to be asleep and let my wife check it out)
Traffic
The hum of a hard drive

ME: Of any book ever published, what’s your dream title to narrate (even if your voice wouldn’t be a good match)?
TH: I’m going to exclude all the Victorian classics. Having said that there is no contest, No Country For Old Men wins hands down. It’s one of those books that is equally as good on screen and the audio book version read by Tom Stechschulte makes me wish I was born with a Texas accent. Do yourself a favour and check it out.

Do yourself a favour and check out Tadhg’s titles for Iambik. These and all Iambik titles can be picked up with a 50% discount throughout June 2011 by entering #jiam2011 at checkout:

• The Failure by James Greer (Akashic Books), “such an unqualified success, both in conception and execution, that I have grave doubts he actually wrote it.” (says Steven Soderbergh)
• Open Your Eyes by Paul Jessup (Apex Book Company), “surrealistic space opera in the tradition of New Wave experimentalism, echoing the fantastic imagery of Samuel R. Delany and the angst-ridden identity paranoia of Philip K. Dick, all bound together in a distinctly modern vision of a post-technological future bereft of a human core.” (says Jay Lake, author of Escapement and Green)

Here’s Ruth Golding, narrator most recently of the audiobook of Kirsty Riddiford’s Ben and the Book of Prophecies (published in print by HandE Publishers), answering my 5 questions for Iambik’s narrators, proofreaders, and other purveyors of fine audiobook amusements. I don’t know about you, but for me, Ruth’s voice is so distinctive, and so melodious, that even her words on the web browser seem to spill right off the screen in her voice.

All our titles, including Ben and the Book of Prophecies and other titles narrated by Ruth, can be purchased at a 50% discount by entering #jiam2011 at checkout through the end of June 2011.

Miette Elm: First off, what are you up to? What titles have you recently wrapped, what are you in the middle of, and how’s it going?;

Narrator Ruth Golding

Ruth Golding: Iambik has recently released Ben and the Book of Prophecies by Kirsty Riddiford, and I’m in the middle of recording Trencarrow Secret by Anita Davison, a historical romance with a twist. It always takes me a long time to get going – the characters have to live in my head for a while before I feel able to “be” them.

In my other “life” I have just released The Wonderful Garden, one of E. Nesbit’s lesser known children’s books, for LibriVox.org, and finished recording The Prophet by Khalil Gibran (it’s in the Public Domain in Europe) for a new site, to be launched soon.

ME: Anything stand out as the funniest or strangest sentence you’ve recorded?
RG: Just occasionally, something that looks fine on the printed page sounds hilarious when read aloud. This is my favourite:

“A cock crowed, blending with the church bells and Philippe’s hoarse breathing beside her.” I still can’t say it aloud without snorting with laughter.

ME: Care to share one of the more colourful compliments you’ve received about your voice or narration talents?
RG: I get a lot of comments on my blog, and although I know what this lady meant, it still makes me chuckle: “I wonder, where that magic town is in which people speak like you“. But the one that really had me up in the clouds was “You put your everlasting signature to human culture.” Keep the comments coming, listeners. I love ’em!

ME: What are the world’s top 5 sounds? What are the worst?
RG:
TOP:

1. Bach’s Mass in B minor (does that count?)
2. Django Reinhardt’s guitar
3. The silence of the night
4. A blackbird singing
5. The gentle ripple of a calm sea

WORST:
1. Crying
2. Police/ambulance sirens
3. My computer fan
4. Car alarms
5. Chalk on a blackboard

ME: Of any book ever published, what’s your dream title to narrate (even if your voice wouldn’t be a good match)?
RG: It often seems that the books I want to record most are written from a male perspective in the first person – perhaps their very unattainability is what makes them so desirable to me. What a treat it would be to record The Insult by Rupert Thomson. His prose is exquisite; the dream-like quality of his writing is haunting.

Get Ben and the Book of Prophecies, narrated by Ruth Golding, at a 50% discount by entering #jiam2011 when prompted at checkout through the end of June 2011. This discount applies to all our titles, including Ruth’s other Iambik projects:

• It’s Behind You, by Keith Temple, “a story about fame, megalomania, and murder”
• The Edge of Eden, by Helen Benedict, “a page-turner, brimming with jealousy, sex, and deception in this ominous Eden”

And if you can’t get enough of Ruth, you wouldn’t be the only one. Enjoy Ruth’s free public domain audiobooks on Librivox, follow her on Twitter, or visit her audiobook blog.

Here’s Diane Havens, narrator of the Iambik audiobook of Katharine Beutner’s Alcestis (published in print by Soho Press), in the first of (what I hope to be) many answers to 5 questions for Iambik’s narrators, proofreaders, and other magicians. All our titles, including Alcestis, can be purchased at a 50% discount by entering #jiam2011 at checkout through the end of June 2011.

Miette Elm: First off, what are you up to? What titles have you recently wrapped, what are you in the middle of, and how’s it going?

Narrator Diane Havens

Diane Havens: Absolutely loved narrating Alcestis for Iambik a couple of months ago. Truly a satisfying book to perform. After that I finished The Psalms as part of a Bible series I’m doing for Vendetti Audiobooks, and right now I’m prepping a sci-fi title. Very excited about that since it would be my first book in that genre. It’s another book with a strong woman as main character. I always enjoy those — and that seems to be a voice role in which I am often cast, so it’s a good fit for me.

ME: Anything stand out as the funniest, strangest, or most amazing section of text in your history as a narrator?
DH: Of course that first line we all loved from Alcestis (They knew the child’s name only because her mother died cursing it, clutching at the bloodied bedclothes and spitting out the word as if it tasted sour on her tongue.) That book is full of many gorgeous passages.

I’ve done a couple of legal novels by Will Nathan — with lots of colorful, raw language in them, as befits the subject matter. (I will not allow my mother to listen to either of them.) And they’re filled with observations that I thought were spot on, like this one from Book of Business: “He couldn’t understand why just playing ball wasn’t enough for some people. How they wanted you to like it, too.”

ME: Care to share one of the more colourful compliments you’ve received about your voice or narration talents?
DH: Probably the funniest one I can recall came during an interview with a reporter. Fellow VO Kat Keesling and I collaborated on a huge public service project. We had organized a group of voice actors who volunteered to record sections of all the health care reform legislation as it was being debated in the US Congress, and posted the audio for free download at a site we called Hearthebill.org. We received considerable press coverage, and this reporter told me he’d listened to the first section of the bill, the one I’d recorded, and he’d never heard a table of contents so beautifully delivered. Made me smile for days.

ME: What are the world’s top 5 sounds? What are the worst?
DH:
TOP:

1. the words “I love you” especially as spoken by my son with the word “mommy” added at the end
2. birds chirping on a summer morning
3. waves crashing on the shoreline
4. a cat’s purr
5. an Irish flute

WORST:
1. traffic sounds/ motorcycles revs
2. construction/demolition noises of any sort
3. a child coughing deep and painfully during the night
4. drip of a faucet … once isn’t bad, but constantly is another thing altogether
5. the sound a cat makes when you step on her tail

ME: Of any book ever published, what’s your dream title to narrate (even if your voice wouldn’t be a good match)?
DH: I don’t know if I could narrow it down to just one. As soon as I think of one title, I immediately think of another I covet as much. I’m never monogamous when it comes to literature.

Get Alcestis, narrated by Diane Havens, at a 50% discount by entering #jiam2011 when prompted at checkout through the end of June 2011.