Erin Ruth Walker (left) and Gail Shalan are audiobook narrators. Photos by Patrick Strattner (Walker) and Chris Sorensen (Shalan)

CFA Alumni

Conversation

Voice actors Gail Shalan and Erin Ruth Walker discuss the art of audiobook narration

“It’s really exciting,” says Shalan, who recorded her first book in 2013. “This has been a big leveling up kind of year for me. I knew several books I did were in consideration for Audies, but I was pretty sure nothing was going to come through. It came as a huge surprise.”

Shalan has become a prolific narrator since earning a graduate degree in acting from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the UK. She draws from the training she received at the school and at CFA. “The tools I learned—commedia dell’arte, mask work, clown work, dialect training—have all helped me,” she says. “For my master’s degree, we worked a lot on dialects. As an audiobook narrator, I use them more often than not.”

Erin Ruth Walker began narrating audiobooks in 2021, at one point turning to Shalan for advice about breaking into the industry. Now, she’s narrated more than 40 books while acting for film and TV—recent credits include the TV series Daisy Jones & the Six and The Consultant on Amazon Prime and the romantic comedy Which Brings Me to You.

Walker (’13) especially enjoys narrating books for younger audiences. “Some of the prettiest books I’ve narrated have been children’s books,” she says. “I think there’s also something about telling stories to younger audiences that allows me to tap into the childlike wonder. It makes me feel happy and alive and motivated in the [recording] booth when I’m telling those stories.”

In 2023, Shalan and Walker teamed up as part of an ensemble cast of narrators for the audiobook version of the young adult novel House Party, edited by justin a. reynolds. They came together again in February 2024 to discuss their experiences in the audiobook industry, how their acting education helps, and key things they consider when it comes to effective narration.

Erin Ruth Walker: Gail, was voiceover always where you knew you wanted to go? How did you find your way to audiobooks?

Gail Shalan: I moved to New York right after graduation. I was really floundering when it came to how to get a foot in the door. But then I got an email inviting New York City–based alumni of the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Arts program I did for study abroad to Audible Studios to learn from the legendary narrators Scott Brick and the late Katy Kellgren about the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), where indie rights holders and authors can find narrators and hire them directly.

I was mesmerized by Katy. She invited me to sit with her on the train back to Penn Station. She spoke about how she loves her job as a narrator because it allows her to have a family, a reliable income, and flexibility in her own schedule. She was like, “I get to play all the parts, do all the voices.” And I thought, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

I went through ACX, and I booked my first project there pretty quickly. But I did maybe only six projects over the next four years. And then I went to grad school in the UK, where I narrated a little bit. I got my first Audible UK project because they needed an American voice.

ERW: I felt similarly when I graduated. All I wanted to do is tell stories, and I’d do it however anyone would let me. But I didn’t know how to open doors in any part of this industry.

GS: Coming back to the States, I thought, okay, this is something I want to fully pursue. In 2019, I built a home studio in my closet.

ERW: At the height of the pandemic, there was no acting work, and I thought maybe this is the time to start investigating voiceover, and specifically audiobooks. I started seeking out people for advice. I looked for coaches to get some training, because it is very different than on-camera work or theater, which is what I’d been doing. I also built a studio in a closet. I think it’s time to upgrade that.

GS: It’ll change your life. Do it.

ERW: Yeah, it’s kind of a cave right now. [Laughs.] I booked my first audiobook with Audible Studios. It’s still part time for me, because I do pursue an on-camera career. But it’s really changed things for me. Audiobook narration has allowed me to have a creative and artistic life. I’m very grateful to the audiobook community. They are some of the most lovely, kindest people I’ve ever met.

GS: Isn’t that true?

ERW: Everyone is just so warm and open, and there’s no gatekeeping.

GS: Would you agree that this is quite a self-selecting avenue of creative performance?

ERW: One hundred percent. I think this is a part of the industry that weeds people out pretty quickly. It’s hard—not just physically hard, but it’s a mentally hard job because you have to be by yourself in a small space for hours. A lot of the work is self-directed. You have to just be like, okay, we’re going to keep going, and you don’t get a break.

GS: I think you hit on a lot of what I’ve also experienced. The solitude thing—you have to learn how to create in a vacuum and not feel alone. I think that the generosity of our community actually may come from that.

ERW: I have a technical question. It’s something I think about a lot. What are things that you do to keep your voice healthy? It’s just that I had no vocal stamina. When you’re in [theater] school, you’re doing it every day. I think it’s like when you work out every day, you take it for granted. Then, when you stop, you’re like, whoa, I can’t do a push-up anymore. I would say three sentences and be running out of breath. It really is a muscle in training.

GS: We as narrators are talking for, like, six hours a day, four to five days a week, and it’s quite different than what you’d use onstage. I think it has shifted my lifestyle. I drink so much water. I make a lot of choices about what I’m going to do or consume in my free time based on how it might affect my vocal quality. Sleep makes a huge difference. I schedule around hormonal cycles because those affect the voice.

ERW: I get really bad allergies, so if I notice that my voice is starting to sound really different, I’ll stop if I have the space. I do that, because sometimes when you listen to audiobooks, you can detect, oh, that was a pickup.

GS: You really learn your instrument when you play it that often. I think it’s a sign of somebody who’s very seasoned when they can make a pickup seamless. It’s actually a musical thing. It’s not an acting choice.

I had this really challenging project earlier on, a 500-page middle grade novel in verse. I knew how to do hours of verse on a Shakespearean stage, but I was like, how do I do this as a 12-year-old character, in my closet, and how do I not breathe? I coached with the amazing [narrator] Gabra Zackman. She told me to use everything I know about breath and allow it to be part of the performance. It sounds so obvious. And when you think about narrations that you love, it’s like, of course, they’re human.

ERW: I think the difference between really good narration and serviceable narration is using breath and actually talking to a specific single human being. I literally put up a picture of someone I know. I tell a story to that person because it changes my voice. All of a sudden, it’s intimate and personal.

GS: Absolutely. It’s using the power of your imagination to create these acting dynamics that we’ve been trained with.

ERW: More than any other part of the industry, I get the most questions about audiobooks. I think it feels the most mysterious for people.

GS: One of the questions I’ll ask people who are interested in exploring it is, what draws you to this? If it’s about wanting an easier way to make more money as an actor, it’s very easy to explain that this is not what this will be. If it’s about a love for this form of storytelling, then we have somewhere to start.

The task I give those folks—something somebody advised me at some point—is to put yourself in a very small, dark space and take a nice long book, 300 to 600 pages, and read it out loud, from start to finish, or for as long as you can. Every time you mess up, go back to the beginning of that sentence, and start again. If you’ve done this now for several hours back-to-back and you still like it, then keep doing it. If not, this is probably not going to be for you.

ERW: You’re right. What’s your favorite part about being an audiobook narrator?

GS: I found a lot of freedom with folks taking me for my word when I articulate who I am and what I have to offer. Rather than judging me by my book cover, they read a little deeper. It’s not just how I see you based on your headshot and your name and where I think in the world your ancestors might be from.

Instead, there was real honor for my passions and skills. I didn’t have a lot of ease in that during my [acting] training. I didn’t fit in a lot of places. But in audiobooks, it felt like there was permission to fit in a lot of places that feel true. Have you had that experience?

ERW: I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. There is something really freeing about voiceover. It gets to be a true expression of your voice, your self, your soul; it’s just you, without any of the trappings of your physical body. When I was starting out [in acting], I was told a lot, “Well, you don’t look like what you are; what you look like is this.” There is something about audiobooks that feels really special because that’s all gone.

GS: I feel there’s a larger pool of voices that we’re hearing from in publishing.

ERW: I think the industry did something really great in that they realized, okay, we are telling these diverse stories, but our narrators are mostly still coming from a certain perspective. Maybe we should open that up to find narrators who can authentically portray these stories.

GS: And I think that in recent years there’s also been a lot of agency and control given back to the authors in regard to this as audiobooks have risen in profile. What we really need is the level that decides what books are being published to actually be more diverse itself, but it has made a lot of progress.

This Series

Conversation: Martin Sherman & Kirsten Greenidge

Also in

Conversation

• July 12, 2023

  Conversation: Fred Zollo & Harvey Young

• December 21, 2022

  Conversation: Joseph Conyers & Angelica Hairston

• June 17, 2022

  Conversation: Emily Deschanel and Daria Polatin

Series home