I’m extremely pleased to report that the audio book version of Library at Mount Char, narrated by Hillary Huber, has just won an Earphone Award.
A little back story: like a lot of Atlanta commuters, I’ve been using audio books to take the sting out of the daily commute for years now. So it was natural that when I was writing Mount Char I would occasionally daydream about the possibility of one day hearing it on audio. Can’t hurt to dream, right? To my pleasant surprise, the audio rights did sell. That was great, but when the day actually came I was also ever-so-slightly anxious. “My baby,” et. cetera, et. cetera. When I found out Hillary was going to do the narration, I relaxed–I’d heard a couple of her other books, and I knew she did good work.
We talked on the phone once, to sort out pronunciations of the made-up words and character accents. She clearly got the story, and I could tell she was going to put her heart in the work. She’s also got a naturally fantastic voice—I could listen to her read the phone book.
Even so, I was floored by the final result. I really, honestly could not be happier with how the audio book turned out. I’m fairly familiar with the story at this point (he said dryly), but I’ve listened to the whole thing twice just to hear what she did with the voices.
So, anyway, please join me in a long and richly deserved round of applause for Ms. Huber. My baby could not have been in better hands.