Q&A With My Male Narrator

The audiobooks of both Memory Lane and Rocky Road (which released last week!!!) have two narrators. A female narrator reading the scenes I wrote from my female characters point of view. And a male narrator reading the scenes I wrote from my male characters point of view. Ryan Hudson was my male narrator for both novels and that was extremely fortunate for me because I’M A HUGE FAN of his. I was so pleased when he agreed to answer the below questions . . . .

I’ve used this stock photo in the past to represent Ryan. I’m dusting it off and utilizing it again because he doesn’t share photos of himself. Yes–very mysterious!

BECKY: Can you tell us a little about the path that led you to narrating novels?

RYAN: I have always enjoyed reading. I’m eternally curious, so reading out loud was a very natural progression.  It also didn’t hurt that I’m an actor and voice artist . . . so all of this lined up really nicely for me. I hardly think of narrating as work. Haha.

BECKY: What do you enjoy about narration work? Is any aspect of it challenging?

RYAN: What’s great about narration is the wide range of books I get to read.  It’s also nice to get to read things that I might not necessarily seek out on my own. I also find the schedule to be relatively flexible so it melds into my schedule really well.  

As far as difficulty goes . . . when narrating a book with lots of characters, I always try hard to walk the line between creating a voice that is too distracting (especially when voicing female characters) and not distinguishing them enough. The only other real difficulty is just vocal strain from long, long sessions of narration. We don’t often think about speaking in a performative way as vocally stressful, but when you are sensitive to the quality of your voice . . . after a few hours . . . there is definitely some degradation in quality. At least for me.

BECKY: What is your routine during an average recording session?

RYAN: My process is usually very simple and straightforward. I like shorter sessions, it keeps my energy up and my voice strong. So when time permits, I’ll try to knock out an hour at a time, or I’ll schedule time by chapter or by emotional arc in the story. Frequently I’ll have a cup of tea, take my time . . . do an entire read-through of a chapter, then go back and clean up any edits. The one thing I don’t often do that many narrators do is read the book ahead of time. I’ll do a general “once over” just so I can have a top-down view of the book as a whole. But I like to discover it in real time, the same way whatever character I am narrating would. 

Here’s a link to Rocky Road on Spotify and here’s a link to Rocky Road on Audible. Both of those two sites offer audio samples of the novel. If you listen to audiobooks via other platforms, you should hopefully find Memory Lane and Rocky Road there, too. Here you’ll find a list of retailers that offer Rocky Road in paperback and ebook.

The moment when I get to launch a new book into the world is always a moment of celebration and gratitude to the Lord. Never has that been more true than with this book, which I wrote during my health struggles of 2023. I’m marveling at the Lord’s faithfulness and His ability to come through for us in strength when we are weakest.

Warmly, Becky p.s. If you’re an author interested in hiring Ryan, reach out to me and I’ll provide his email address.

Did anything about Ryan’s answers come as a surprise?