Category: Frankie Bow | Page 34

January 12, 2016

Giveaway and Author Interview: Lida Sideris, Murder and Other Unnatural Disasters

“A smart caper with a heroine to match.” –Kirkus Reviews

Corrie Locke belongs behind a desk, not behind a Glock. She should be taking VIP calls, not nosing around a questionable suicide. Instead, she’s hot on the trail of a murderer.
Murder and Other Unnatural Disasters
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Paperback: 408 pages
The Wild Rose Press, Inc (September 30, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-1509202409
ASIN: B014BVSWTE

Q: Lida joins me today to talk about her debut romantic suspense novel, Murder and Other Unnatural Disasters. Can you tell us a little more about the book?

A: Aloha Frankie! Thanks so much for hosting me today. My book is about a newly minted lawyer who lands a dream job in a Hollywood movie studio, only to be blackmailed into investigating the suspicious death of a co-worker.

Q: What kind of research did you do for your setting?
A: Very little. I set the book where I lived and knew well, in Southern California. I did revisit some of the places mentioned in the book to be certain I’d gathered all the details needed. For instance,
when my heroine, Corrie Locke visits a jewelry store in Newport Beach, she hides out in some bushes near the store. I traveled to where the store is supposed to be to figure out the best hiding place, and inserted Corrie behind some banana trees. Also
in a subplot, Corrie investigates a kidnapping of a lucky charm in Bel Air. I happened to walk the street where the action takes place. It’s near the Playboy Mansion, and I got to view the street on a Sunday morning, after a big party at the Mansion. That was used
to describe what my heroine saw.
Q: Tell me about something unexpected that happened when you when you were writing this book.
A: I completed it! No one was more surprised than I was when it was finally finished. The whole way I wondered and fretted whether I could type “The End” with some degree of confidence. It happened! Yes!

Q: Like your heroine, you worked as an entertainment attorney. Is there anything from real life that made it into the book?

A: Yes. There is an f-bomb tirade that occurs on my heroine’s second day at work. That happened to me. I picked up the phone, as Corrie did, and someone unleashed a slew of expletives. Someone I didn’t know, a talent agent of a client, and had had no interaction with, but who needed to express himself. It unnerved me. I was able to calm him down…as did Corrie.
Q: Lawyers have to read and write a lot. Did you find that any skills or habits from your legal career transferring to your fiction writing?
A: Absolutely. The words we pick are important. One word or a sentence could shift a viewpoint. The right word or sentence, that is, and I tried really hard to make sure the words and sentences I used fit well. It’s a learning process. I’m still learning.
Q: What’s one great piece of advice for any aspiring writers reading this?

A: Never ever, ever, ever give up. The only magic behind success in any endeavor is persistence. If you find the writing is not flowing, put it aside. Come back when you’re good and ready.

Q: What do you read for pleasure?

A: I really enjoy the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich and love the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith.

Q: What’s next?

A: I’m working on Book Two in the Corrie Locke series. Corrie’s best friend/possible love interest is implicated in a homicide, and it’s up to her to save him.

About The Author

Like her heroine, Corrie Locke, Lida Sideris worked as an entertainment attorney for a film studio. Unlike her heroine, she did not get blackmailed into investigating the suspicious death of a co-worker. Lida resides in the northern tip of Southern California with her family, their rescue shepherds, and a flock of uppity chickens. She was one of two national recipients of the Helen McCloy/Mystery Writers of America scholarship for mystery writing.

Author Links

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THE CASE OF THE DEFUNCT ADJUNCT

January 11, 2016

Interview: Lea Wait, author of Thread and Gone

When a priceless antique is stolen, murder unravels the peaceful seaside town of Haven Harbor, Maine…

Angie Curtis and her fellow Mainely Needlepointers know how to enjoy their holidays. But nothing grabs their attention like tying up loose threads. So when Mary Clough drops in on the group’s Fourth of July supper with a question about antique needlepoint she’s discovered in her family Colonial-era home, Angie and her ravelers are happy to look into the matter.

Q: Aloha Lea, thanks for stopping by! Angie Curtis, of the Mainely Needlepointers, has some history. Tell us about her.
A: Angie Curtis, my protagonist, had a rough childhood in Haven Harbor, Maine. She never knew who her dad was, and her mom had lots of boyfriends. When Angie was ten her mother walked out … and never came back. Angie’s more conventional grandmother brought her up, but people in town expected Angie to take after her mother. She had a rocky adolescence, and headed west, as far away from Maine as she could get, after high school. In Mesa, Arizona, she got a job working for a private investigator, learned how to “follow and photo,” and bought a Glock. When she was twenty-seven her grandmother’s call, “Angie, it’s time to come home. They’ve found your mother,” brought her back to Haven Harbor, where she has to confront her memories, and possibly find her future.
Q: How much of you is in Angie? How would you feel about her if you met her in real life?
A: Although, like me, Angie loves the sea and the sea coast, she is younger than I am, braver, has less education, and is still figuring out who she is. She drinks a little too much, trusts too little, but is “street smart,” and a hard worker. I like her.
Q: Do your characters change and evolve throughout consecutive books in the series?
A: Some of my younger characters, especially Angie, change as the Mainely Needlepoint series progresses. But, even more important, all my characters have secrets and pasts, and in each book Angie (and my readers) will find out a little more about who they are. Few people are as they appear on the surface.
Q: You mention in your author bio that you left the corporate world a few years ago. Have you ever thought of going back to your old workplace and killing someone–on the pages of a murder mystery, I mean?
A: So far I have no desire to go back to the corporate world – fictionally or in person. But that doesn’t mean some of the people I knew there, and things I learned, won’t pop up in various books!
Q: How realistic is your setting? Do you take liberties, or are you true to life?
A: Haven Harbor is a fictional seaport, but it’s very realistic. It has a working waterfront, seafood restaurants, antique stores and art galleries, a bakery and a small police force. The postmaster and minister know everyone in town. In the summer the town is flooded with tourists. Mainers who live there year ‘round respect each other’s privacy (and secrets) and may work three or four different jobs during the year to support their families. People from away might describe Haven Harbor as “scenic” or “quaint.” But they don’t see what goes on in the rooms behind those wide porches and green-painted doors.
Q: When the movie or TV series is made, who plays the major parts?
A: That’s a tough one! I see Angie as a younger Angie Dickinson. Her Gram could be Helen Mirren or Angela Lansbury. As for the other characters … I think the readers should picture them.
Q: What’s the worst and best advice you’ve heard or received as an author?
A: Worst advice? “Write what you know.” I think it should be, “Start with what you know.” Research and imagination will take you the rest of the way. Best advice? Be productive. Keep reading. Keep writing. And know when it’s time to write “The End” and move on.

About The Author

About The Author –
Lea Wait lives on the coast of Maine. A fourth generation antique dealer, and author of the Agatha-nominated Shadows Antique Print mystery series, she loves all things antiques and Maine, and she’s learning to do needlepoint. She also writes historical novels for young people set in (where else?) nineteenth-century Maine. Lea adopted her four daughters when she was single; she’s now the grandmother of eight, and married to artist Bob Thomas.

Keep up with Lea

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January 6, 2016

Here's the disappointingly low level of alcohol consumption associated with reduced risk of dementia

One drink a day (or less) for women and 1-2 drinks (or less) for men reduces the risk of developing dementia, a study has found.
It works out to between 8 and 14 drinks per week.

The study is one of the largest — and longest — to look at the connection between alcohol and dementia.

Dr Kaycee Sink, one of the study’s authors, said:

“As of yet, we still have no cure for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, so it is important to look for things that might help people prevent the disease.
Moderate alcohol intake has been linked to lower risk of heart attacks, stroke, dementia, and death in middle-aged adults, but there is still controversy about alcohol intake in older adults.”

Over 3,000 people aged 75 or over took part in the research, which followed them for over six years.
The study found that those who drank moderately had a 37% reduction in the risk of developing dementia compared with those who did not drink at all.
In this study there was no link between the type of alcohol people drank and the benefits.
Dr Kaycee Sink

“We were excited to see that even in older adults, moderate alcohol intake decreases the risk of dementia,.
It is important to note, however, that our study found a significantly higher risk of dementia for heavy drinkers who started the study with mild cognitive impairment.”

The study can’t tell us whether people should abstain until they are in their 70s, but it seems likely the results reflect steady habits.

Dr Kaycee Sink said:

“The participants in this study self-reported their alcohol intake at the start, but it is unusual for people to start drinking in their 70s, so we assume that the habits they reported at the start of the study reflect stable drinking habits.
Without scientific data showing that it is beneficial, I wouldn’t recommend that non-drinkers start drinking in their 70s.”

Dr Kaycee Sink explained:

“Our results suggest that older adults who are normal cognitively and drink moderately do not need to change their drinking behavior.
If you have mild cognitive impairment however, it might benefit you to restrict your drinking and certainly not exceed one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men.”

The study was published in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia (Sink et al., 2009).
Read the original post on PsyBlog

Stimulate your brain with a murder mystery

THE CASE OF THE DEFUNCT ADJUNCT

June 30, 2015

For Job Interviews, Earlier in the Day May Be Better

During a job interview, many applicants worry that their professional fate rests in the first few moments of the interview. After a few minutes—or even seconds—the interviewer has sized them up and arrived at a decision.

But new research suggests that there may be a different factor for job candidates to worry about: timing. Data gathered by psychological scientists Rachel Frieder (Old Dominion University), Chad Van Iddekinge (Florida State University), and Patrick Raymark (Clemson University) challenge the common belief that interviewers rely on near-instantaneous snap judgements. Instead, their research suggests that a successful interview may depend on your place in the interview schedule.

For the first one or two applicants, interviewers don’t have much information to process, allowing them to make a decision about a candidate’s suitability fairly easily. But, as more candidates are interviewed, interviewers have to remember, process, and compare increasing amounts of information. Therefore, interviewers may resort to using rule-of-thumb strategies, also known as heuristics, to help them make decisions.

“We expected that interviewers would take longer to make decisions about the first few applicants they interviewed and take less time to make decisions as they interviewed additional applicants,” Frieder and colleagues write.

To test this theory, the researchers analyzed data from hundreds of real job interviews conducted at a university career fair. A group of 166 experienced interviewers representing a variety of organizations interviewed a total of 691 students.

Each interviewer conducted an average of six interviews, each scheduled for a 30-minute time slot. Immediately after each interview session, interviewers rated the performance of the job candidate and noted at what point in the interview they had come to their decision.

According to the interviewers’ self-reports, snap judgements were actually very rare: Interviewers reported making a decision within the first minute of the interview only about 5% of the time. This generally happened when an applicant’s performance was either exceptionally good or bad.

Most of the time, interviewers reported making their decision between 5 and 15 minutes into the interview. However, over 20% still hadn’t made up their minds even after the interview was over.

The data showed that interviewers tended to take progressively longer to come to a decision after the first few applicants. However, after talking to about four applicants, the deliberation time began to decrease after each additional applicant.

In other words, as the number of applicants increased, interviewers took longer to deliberate because they had more information to process. The findings suggest that once the cognitive load of all the information got to be too much, around the fourth candidate, they began to rely more on heuristics to come to a quicker, more automatic decision.

“One implication is that interview order may place some applicants at a disadvantage,” the researchers conclude. “For example, applicants interviewing later in the schedule might not get as much opportunity to perform as those earlier in the schedule.”

Other factors also influenced how quickly an interviewer came to a decision. Interviewers who engaged in small talk with applicants tended to make quicker decisions, as did interviewers with more experience.

The researchers caution that they were not able to determine whether interviewers who took longer to make a decision were actually better at choosing high-performing applicants. It’s entirely possible that quick judgements were just as accurate at gauging talent as more deliberate interviews.

However, organizations may benefit from making sure that interviewers give each candidate an equal shot to show their stuff during the interview. The researchers suggest limiting the number of interviews that an interviewer conducts in immediate succession and ensuring there are breaks between interviews.

Reference

Frieder, R. E., Van Iddekinge, C. H., & Raymark, P. H. (2015). How quickly do interviewers reach decisions? An examination of interviewers’ decision‐making time across applicants. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. doi: 10.1111/joop.12118

from Association for Psychological Science » Minds for Business http://bit.ly/1U5sjcj

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June 29, 2015

New software gizmo will tell you what your skills are, match you with the perfect job

Texas State Technical College, spurred by the fact that one third of its state funding is now tied to its graduates’ starting salaries, has eliminated all majors except petroleum engineering developed software that matches graduates’ skills with job requirements. But why should Texas State Technical College students have all the fun? Anyone can try out the Skills Engine here.

I fed three academic CVs into the Skills Engine. Do academics actually have any transferable skills? See the results over at College Misery.

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June 28, 2015

GUEST POST: Cheesecake, love, and other mysteries by Laura Pauling

Laura Pauling writes about spies, murder and mystery. She’s the author of the young adult Circle of Spies Series, the Prom Impossible Series, the time travel mysteries, Heist and A Royal Heist, and the Holly Hart Cozy Mystery Series: Footprints in the Frosting and Deadly Independence with more coming.

She lives the cover of a suburban mom/author perfectly, from the minivan to the home-baked snickerdoodles, while hiding her secret missions and covert operations. But shh. Don’t tell anyone. And she may or may not actually bake cookies. You decide.

Laura stopped by to chat about cheesecake, love, and other mysteries.

cheesecake, love, & other mysteries

I wanted to write a cozy mystery. That much I knew. All I needed was inspiration in the form of an amateur sleuth. As I waited for the creative winds to blow my way, I happened to chat with a friend.

I found my inspiration.

My friend was branching out and starting her own business–selling cheesecakes! I loved it. I loved that with an already established career, kids, a husband, and two dogs, she was getting creative with her life. Pursuing a dream. Putting in the hard work and long hours it takes to launch a business. Making herself vulnerable.

Love, love, loved it. And I found my amateur sleuth. The facts that my sleuth, Holly Hart, bakes cheesecake and has red hair are the only similarities between her and the real-life inspiration.

How could I not be inspired? How could anyone not be inspired? If only in that it proves that we can do anything we put our mind to. It’s never to late to start a business or write that novel or attempt to combine what we love with what we do, whether it be for money or love.

After I found my sleuth, I dove into writing the mysteries. I have four written and two already published. Footprints in the Frosting came out in May, and Deadly Independence went live early June. If you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll receive a free mystery, Murder with a Slice of Cheesecake, which will release in July.

If you could branch out and try something new or follow a dream, what would it be?

Visit Laura at http://laurapauling.com to sign up for her newsletter and receive a free Holly Hart cozy mystery novella.

Author Links

Purchase Links

Footprints in the Frosting: Holly Hart Cozy Mystery 1
COMING SOON: Deadly Independence: Holly Hart Cozy Mystery 2

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June 27, 2015

Can “Extreme Music” Calm You Down?

Tested: Whether Extreme Music Causes Anger or Calms You Down:

Here are a few examples of the song titles, if you need to ‘calm down’ a little:

Dawn of Battle by Manowar

The Epic Rage of Furious Thunder by Gloryhammer

Dark Days by Parkway Drive

11 Ways To Hate by Five Finger Death Punch

By Jeremy Dean at PsyBlog

Unscientific note: Here’s my pick.

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June 26, 2015

New BMJ editorial: “How Medicine is Broken, and How We Can Fix It”

Well documented problems exist in the funding and prioritisation of research, the conduct of trials, the withholding of results, the dissemination of evidence, and its implementation with patients. Here we briefly examine six domains where the academy could call for simple practical improvements that would address legitimate concerns.

Publication bias—We conduct trials to detect modest differences, and spend vast amounts of money specifically to exclude bias, yet we allow that bias to flood back in through selective publication.3 4 Eminent bodies writing reports will not fix this, but practical action will. We need new funding for simple systematic work to audit which trials are unreported, to highlight the best and worst performers, and to shine a light on withheld studies.5

Independent trials—A recent cohort study found that 97% of head to head trials sponsored by industry give results that favour the sponsor’s drug.6 Doctors and patients are right to want independent trials. On statins and oseltamivir, there are two clear opportunities, and here we declare our own conflicts. With colleagues, one of us (CH) first proposed a trial of oseltamivir in a pandemic in 2009; the other (BG) first proposed a trial of statins examining side effects over a year ago. In both cases we could have the answer by now.

Cost of trials—Replication will be possible only if the cost of conducting trials is radically reduced. Much of this cost is driven by disproportionate regulation around trials of routinely used treatments.7 The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidance on cholesterol argues for head to head trials in low risk populations; this would require over 100 000 participants, followed up for a decade. Such trials can practically be delivered only by reducing the expensive and disproportionate regulatory burden,7 embedding them in everyday clinical care and gathering follow-up data from existing electronic health records.8

Better evidence—Treatments are routinely approved after trials with only surrogate outcomes.9 Drugs are then extensively promoted, at the moment of approval, when evidence on real world outcomes is paradoxically at its weakest. We could encourage better evidence by, for example, compelling companies to follow-up all phase III trial participants until real world benefits emerge, considering routine randomisation for newly approved drugs when benefits are unclear, and bartering with either patent extension or choice of the start date for market exclusivity. These suggestions would come at minimal cost and deliver more comprehensive data on treatment effects.

Shared decision making—Concern over statins has recently been reawakened by the introduction of a financial incentive for general practitioners to prescribe the drugs to low risk patients. This is ill judged because patients’ informed choices vary widely.10 11 An incentive to prescribe a treatment that many adequately informed patients do not want undermines informed decision making and inflicts avoidable reputational harm on the profession. If instead we incentivise shared decision making then—for the same financial outlay—best practice will be recognised, rewarded, and laid down in the everyday templates of what doctors do.12

Declare conflicts of interest—Declaration of conflicts of interest is currently chaotic, inconsistent, and incomplete. We clearly need a central system of declarations, ideally maintained by the General Medical Council.13 Conflicts, however, become particularly salient when evidence is unclear: when decisions about which treatment works best are made on the basis of a speculative, superficially plausible narrative about a drug’s mechanism of action, or on the interpretation of weak, confounded, observational data when randomised trials are feasible. If we are able to generate better evidence and ensure that we see the complete evidence, then competing interests—although they must always be declared—will become less salient.

New BMJ editorial: “How Medicine is Broken, and How We Can Fix It”:

By Ben Goldacre

June 24, 2015

GUEST POST and GIVEAWAY: The Right Kind of Skin (Rhino) by Joanne Guidoccio

In high school, Joanne Guidoccio dabbled in poetry, but it would be over three decades before she entertained the idea of writing as a career. In 2008, she took an early retirement from teaching and decided to launch a second career that would tap into her creative side and utilize her well-honed organizational skills. Before long, Joanne was a working writer; her articles and book reviews were published in newspapers, magazines, and online. Eventually she progressed to fiction, where she finds that reinvention is a recurring theme in her novels and short stories.

Today, Joanne came by to chat about having the right kind of skin. Rhino skin.

Writers especially will appreciate this:

It behooves you to develop a thicker skin.

Toastmaster Rosalind Scantlebury did not mince words at a recent Table Topics Contest. Responding to the prompt—Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me—she focused on an individual’s responsibility not to take things so personally. She peppered her impromptu talk with provocative comments, among them, “What other people think of you is none of your business.”

Definitely inspiring, especially for writers.

Thirty-one years of teaching adolescents thickened my skin considerably, but I faced different challenges when I embarked on a writing career. I had to learn how to deal effectively with critiques and rejection letters from agents and publishers and, most important of all, acquire that coveted rhino skin.

These are some of the strategies in my toolbox:

Get the Back Story
Whenever I attend readings, I pay special attention to the author’s back story. I like hearing the details about his or her writing journey and the challenges encountered along the way. Occasionally, I pick up valuable nuggets of advice that help me along my own journey. For example, Guelph writer Nicholas Ruddock (The Parabolist) established his platform by entering and placing in short story contests. When New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny couldn’t find a Canadian or American agent, she crossed the pond and approached a British agent.

Read Bad Reviews
If I have enjoyed reading a book, I look up the one-star reviews on Amazon. That’s right, I gravitate toward the negative. While shaking my head at the nitpicking and negative comments, I realize that no author is immune from criticism. Not even authors of best-selling novels can please everyone.

Eliminate the Negative
Some writers file and keep all their rejection letters. I suspect they refer to these letters often and get discouraged all over again. It is important to keep accurate records, but it is not necessary to keep these negative reminders around for future reference. After reading a rejection letter, I update the information on a spreadsheet and delete the file.

Throw More Irons Into the Fire
We’ve all heard the advice. Send out the manuscript and then immediately start on another one. Easier said than done. After writing 70K words and looking at multiple drafts of that manuscript, the thought of starting all over again can be daunting. Instead, I like to work on shorter pieces: book reviews, short stories, articles, more blog posts. Entering contests and taking online writing courses also keep my skills sharp. It is important not to sit around waiting for a response. Some action—any action—is needed.

Get Support
I belong to Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, Guppies, and Romance Writers of America. I also participate in discussion boards for The Wild Rose Press and Soul Mate Publishing Authors. I try to attend writing workshops, panels and readings offered within a fifty-mile radius. While interacting with these authors, I get valuable advice and feedback about my work. I appreciate all the help I have received, especially from good friend and fellow writer Patricia Anderson. I had only request: “Let it rip!” And she did, but in a constructive way.

From Toronto based freelancer Ian Harvey…
“Rejections are part of the game, but this is the only game in which rejection doesn’t mean no. It means not now, or not for me, or not for me right now. It doesn’t mean no forever.”

Get Joanne’s latest, A Season for Killing Blondes.

Buy A Season for Killing Blondes — Buy on Amazon

And the giveaway:

Enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card!

Follow Joanne:
Website/Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Pinterest/Goodreads/Book Trailer

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June 22, 2015

Audiobook Talent Interview Part II: Nicole Gose, narrator of THE MUSUBI MURDER

Nicole Gose has done everything from voicing national and international commercial and radio spots, to voicing political campaigns, to mixing and producing jingles and scoring music for commercials, movies and theatrical plays. She is the voice talent for The Musubi Murder audiobook, where she inhabits characters ranging from diplomatic inkeeper Mercedes Yamashiro to anarchist newsblogger Patrick Flanagan to outspoken biology professor Emma Leilani Kano’opomaika’i Nakamura.

And of course Nicole voices the first-person protagonist, Professor Molly Barda, the unwilling amateur sleuth who just wants to stay out of trouble until she gets tenure.

In Part II of this interview, we discuss the production of The Musubi Murder, popular misconceptions about Hawaii, and more!

The Musubi Murder

Q: Did you find the character table with photos helpful? (If not that’s OK!)

A: Yes! I always find it easier to get into character when I know what the character I’ll be portraying looks like. You can really imagine how someone sounds when you see what they look like because you start making comparisons to that character with someone else that you may know of who sounds a certain way. You can also make assumptions as to what kind of a voice someone might have. For instance, if they’re smaller they may have a higher voice.

Character descriptions are also helpful because once you’ve established their physical form and develop the overall “genetics” of a character’s voice, you can then learn from the character description what kind of tone they may have, or how they may speak. If someone is more timid, they may speak softly or they may stutter and you can hear the lack of confidence in that person’s voice. If someone comes from a ‘school of hard knocks’ kind of background, you can imagine that they might sound tough, confident in their speech, and maybe aggressive.

Q: Which character was your favorite to narrate?

Ahh, I got rather attached to Pat and Emma. They make great sidekicks to Molly, and while Molly’s voice was right in my natural mid-range, Pat was in my lower register and Emma was in my higher. It was nice to be able to play around in the different ranges and have fun with that.

Q: Which character was the most challenging?

A: Not any one character in particular per se, but it was a little difficult at times juggling all of the different pidgin speaking characters because they can kind of blend in together.

Q: The Musubi Murder was your first audiobook. Would you do it again?

A: Definitely, although ideally, I would like to just narrate the story and not have to worry about listening back to it, editing and engineering the audio.

Hawaii

Q: Hawaii has had a high profile in the media lately–Hawaii 5-0 continues to be popular and the movie Aloha has stirred up some discussion. Before that, we had The Descendents, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and American Jungle. What do you think about the way Hawaii is portrayed versus what it’s really like to live here?

A: I think Hollywood likes portraying many of the “tropey” aspects of Hawaii and play up the fact that it’s an island setting, and very foreign and different from the rest of the country. But in reality, living there, or at least in Honolulu, was like living in almost any other mid-sized city. I’ve lived in Portland, Oregon for six years and have been living in Los Angeles for the past six months, and I’ve got to say that I’ve seen so many similarities between Los Angeles and Honolulu. The attitude in the people I’ve met is very similar, the traffic is about the same (but LA has more lanes so I actually prefer driving here!) and both cities are filled with skyscrapers. In movies about Hawaii, you rarely get to see that Honolulu has a thriving business community and city life. It isn’t all about Waikiki and tourism.

Q: What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions about living in Hawaii?

A: Going back to the last question, I think most people, when I tell them that I’m from Hawaii, they think of it as basically being America’s island playground, with nothing but endless days of relaxing on the beach.

The Nuts and Bolts

Q: Do you have a studio in your home?

A: Yes, it includes a nice Mac set up with huge monitor speakers and a recording booth I built in my closet.

Q: How did you learn the technical aspects of audio production?

A: I taught myself how to record and mix audio using Garageband a little over ten years ago when I was first recording myself singing and playing guitar and piano. I became much more skilled when I started charging people money to write songs for them.

Q: How many hours a day can you narrate? How do you keep your vocal cords in good condition?

A: I was narrating on average 3-5 chapters a day. I’m not sure how that translated into hours, because I would take breaks all of the time. I would record one chapter all at once, take a break, record another, and take another, longer break..So on and so forth. Taking many breaks is crucial to keeping your vocal cords in good condition. Thankfully, there weren’t really any screaming scenes, but when it comes to those, drinking tea and some herbal supplements like “nin jiom pei pa koa” is good.

Advice

Q: Do you have any advice for people who want to become audiobook narrators?

A: Read! Every day! Read out loud! Also, check out acx.com. It’s a free service for narrators. A lot of voiceover websites are “pay to play” which can work out for some people, but for most, it doesn’t. ACX does not charge a monthly fee to allow you to audition for books, so it’s a great place for someone to get their feet wet in the audiobook world.

I would also recommend for those interested to have taken a few voice over classes or acting classes in general. A huge part of voice acting is the acting part. That’s, really, well 99% of it. Audiobooks are no different. They’re often more acting, since you’d need to be able to portray all characters in a story.

Q: What skills are required to be a good audiobook narrator?

A: Have the patience and stamina to work on a long project. Be able to voice a number of different people. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to have a wide vocal range. With your natural vocal tone, you could still create hundreds of characters by adding some grit to your voice or adding some attitude or swagger, changing up the pacing of your words, and take on different personality traits. How would you say something if you were a perfectionist and “neat freak”? How would you say the same line if you were an out-of-work couch potato? If you are able to create many believable characters, I’d say that’s a great start.

Q: Do you have any advice for authors in hiring and working with audiobook narrators?

A: I had the pleasure of working with Frankie Bow for my first audiobook and it was awesome! I really appreciate her friendliness and positive attitude and feedback and certainly her patience and understanding! 😉 I would say that all authors looking to hire a narrator for their book should possess these qualities. It definitely made the job more enjoyable. [*blush* –ed.]

Q: What other projects are you working on now?

A: I just wrapped up a project where I lent my vocals to an amazing album called “All In” with DJ $crilla, and I’ve provided vocals for a few other albums that cannot be mentioned at this time. I’m also working on some other music projects and a bunch of commercial voiceovers and have been working on more videogames lately.

Q: Where can readers follow you?

A: You can find me at my website, hear me on SoundCloud and follow me on Twitter.

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