Since January, I've been working with a voice coach, improving my delivery for the classroom at Johns Hopkins and with an eye on the next book tour. It's been fun to take on some commercials, animation and narration. Learning how to vary the pitch, cadence, dare say the feeling of what I'm saying.
In the course of the lessons, with the amazing Mark Neely, I realized the audio for several of my books (Red Rain, Night on Manitou Island, Down to the Last Pitch) has yet to be done. I think I'm now going to tackle them myself.
Last week, I did a demo tape at Bias Studios in Springfield, Va., where Danny Gatton, Emmylou Harris and my friends Eddie From Ohio have cut albums. It was a bit unnerving to walk into Studio B and go through multiple takes of my scripts for commercials and narrations. But, all in all, it went pretty well.
Meanwhile, the good folks at Cornell Press, the publishers for Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest to Cure Childhood Leukemia, sold the audio rights to the new book to Blackstone Audio.
In a nice twist, Blackstone is interested in having me do the narration for Cancer Crossings. At the very least, I have a quality demo to send their way.