A few weeks ago, I sat down on Zoom with the extraordinary actor and performer Holly Adams. Holly has narrated almost 200 audiobooks, including both the Mount Moriah Mysteries and the Deep Dish Mysteries. Holly and I covered a lot of ground during our chat, from the challenges of pronouncing made-up place and character names in epic fantasy novels to ways to subliminally make your audience hold their breath.
I “met” Holly in 2014, when I heard her audition tape for the Audible recording of A Murder in Mount Moriah. You can hear an excerpt of her performance here. Her vibrant personality just zinged out of my computer speakers. There was no question of hiring anyone else once I heard that audition. Everything about that audition tape was great, but one thing that absolutely blew me away was Holly’s ability to give each character an instantly-recognizable way of speaking.
I’ll be posting more soon, but here’s a sneak preview of Holly showing how she moves sound around her mouth to create distinct character voices without changing her accent.