Hello friends! I certainly didn’t expect to take the entire month of December off from the Sunday Brunch Series, but life happens. Brunch is back in the new year!
Episode 17 is something a bit different, for the first time I am chatting with a professional audiobook narrator! Thank you so much to Benjamin Fife for offering to feature!
I am seriously visually impaired and 100% passionate that audiobooks ARE books! I am so excited to bring you guys this interview, read on to learn all about what it took to become a narrator, his favorite characters, and honestly more interesting sounding bookish recommendations than I have ever seen in one place before!
Here he is!
🥞Welcome to the SBAIS! Tell everyone a little about yourself and your background?
🎤 I took drama in High School from a very good teacher. We studied dialects, the international phonetic alphabet, 12 guideposts for actors, studied motivations for characters and so on. At the time, it was an easy A, and I had fun with it. Sometimes at the time and often in the years between then & when I started actually narrating, I tended to think I wasted my time with it and probably should have taken a foreign language instead. I DO still wish I had auditioned for more plays when I was in HS & college, but at the time I was fully immersed in Band Geek life (I was basically the head band geek at my HS). I kept using the skills I learned in drama as my partner and I started having kids & I began reading aloud to them. for a decade and a half at least, we’ve read nightly to our family & I gradually would do more characterization & performance instead of just “reading.” And the nightly family read, combined with a commute to my dayjob regularly listening to audiobooks, I became more and more interested in narrating professionally myself
🥞Could you tell everyone a bit about how you became a professional narrator? What does the career path look like for anyone that might be interested?
🎤 About 4 years ago, my wife found the ACX website & with that, I had a new passion that overtook my interest in anything else. For a lot more on this – check out the blog post.
{{This is a great post detailing how he got started and how ACX works – I had never heard of it before. I definitely recommend any authors trying to have an audiobook made to check it out too, as well as interested readers}}
🥞What traits or aspects of an audiobook do you think makes a listening experience truly special?
🎤 An audiobook is an incredibly intimate experience. I think of it as a partnership between the author, the narrator, and the listener and each is an essential part. The idea – author; the performace – narrator; the imagination – listener.
I love narrating also for the emotional catharsis. When you read a book, yes, you can have a unique imagination, but having it performed for you is like an individual play in your mind and performance is definitely the key. Nothing makes me happier than when an author listens to my performance and is moved to tears, other than perhaps if a listener feels the same way
🥞Do you have a favorite genre or accent to narrate?
🎤 Fantasy and Scifi without a doubt. Especially stories that explore the human condition in the tradition of Asimov. I also adore classics. My bestselling series combines a few of these and I love coming back to again and again. Jane Austen’s Dragons by Maria Grace. 9 books so far and counting. And an enormous little name drop twice in book 8 to let you know there’s definitely more coming. Last year I also had the pleasure of narrating Ebenezer: The True Life Story of Ebenezer Scrooge by Douglas Bass. A Christmas Carol is my favorite book of all time, Dickens is my favorite deceased author, and Doug did a great job expanding A Christmas Carol to something more like Great Expectations or David Copperfield. I’m planning on eventually doing my own recordings of the complete works of Dickens, and this was a good primer. Doug’s version is 17 hours versus A Christmas Carol’s normal 3.
So along with that – I enjoy narrating in accents of the British Isles. That was what I studied in HS & have held onto most – And yes, I realize I’m not perfect in my accents. I’ve lived all but 2 years of my life in Idaho, USA. But when you get into accents of the UK, there are such a glut of variations. I kind of have my own idiosyncrasies I’ve adopted for my basic “brit” narration, and then branch off from there for various characters. But I love doing & learning all kinds of different accents. Mountain Folk by John Hood presented more in one book last year than I’ve ever done. (Think American Revolutionary war plus Myth Folk). Various Brit accents, German, Indigenous American, southern us, and so on. It was a fun challenge and a fun book. I’m currently recording Ark of the Apocalypse by Tobin Marks and it features a lot of Russian accents, among others.
🥞Is there a standout favorite character that you have ever voiced? If so, what made them special to you?
🎤 Probably Brant from Jenelle Schmidt’s Minstrel’s Song series. (Starting with King’s Warrior.) He’s essentially the Ben Hur of the series. Lots of depth to his character and some surprising and an abundance of tragedy and drama in his life. Also the only series I’ve narrated that I read the whole thing outloud to my kids as well. If you like LOTR, Lloyd Alexander, or C.S. Lewis, I think you’ll like that.
🥞Do you do any writing yourself or are you more of a reader?
🎤 I’ve mainly blogged so far – but I have several stories that have been floating around in my head for some time. I’m committing to writing 30 minutes a day this year. (My answering these questions qualifies for today). I have a nonfiction book I’ve outlined and a book I’m hoping to co-write with Maria Grace that will fit in her Jane Austen’s Dragons universe – but branch out considerably. I work with some authors who put out an amazing amount of material and I have no idea how they do. Ask me in a year & we’ll see how my 30 min commitment changed things for me. Hopefully I’ll have something to show for it.
🥞How do you feel about brunch? Any favorite brunch foods?
🎤 Considering my prime recording time is 10 PM to 2 AM, my breakfast probably qualifies as brunch. I love a lot of breakfast foods. Give me a good omelette any day. Danish Delight is a dessert / breakfast / brunch food I think I’ve had just a handful of times in my life and its to die for. My mom made it once, maybe twice when I was very young. I never stopped asking her for it after that, but never got it again. about 10 years ago, my wife surprised me with it on my birthday and she did it a couple more times after that…. I should learn to make it myself probably.
Also… I make a mean oatmeal for our family very often. Add a tablespoon of butter (or more) to the water while boiling, a pinch of salt and somewhere between a dash to a tablespoon of cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, and poppy seeds. Serve with honey and raisins, or craisins, or whatever other fruit you want. My kids love it. So do I. Ready in 10 minutes, cheap, nutritious and delicious.
🥞As someone who is pretty severely visually impaired, I tend to be passionate that AUDIOBOOKS ARE BOOKS!!! Do you have any thoughts or input on this debate in the reading community?
🎤 People who don’t think Audiobooks are books are being snobs. Plain and simple. I may garner slightly more information reading the physical book (or ebook – which is also a book), but I am able to consume & process so many more books because of audiobooks. Dickens had characters who learned via audiobooks! (Our Mutual Friend (which I first listened to because of Person of Interest, but that’s another story entirely). Cyrano de Bergerac presented the idea of Audiobooks in L’Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune (“Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon” in 1657! (Also known as A Voyage to the Moon – which the famous old silent movie was based on). I don’t take issue with anyone who has a hard time focusing on audiobooks. Different people learn differently, but the material is the same whether you’re reading the symbols on the page or someone else is presenting them in the sounds that are also symbols for ideas.
🥞Here is the quick round of rapid-fire bookish questions! Do you have a favorite literary character of all time? Favorite book that your always recommend? Favorite author? Feel free to include audio recs!
🎤 Ebenezer Scrooge
And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran
Dead – Charles Dickens
Living – Timothy Zahn
Indie that I’ve narrated for – Gonna be hard to really pick, so I’m going for a 3 way tie so far – Maria Grace, Jenelle Schmidt, and C.D. Tavenor. I’ve also narrated more for each of them than almost anyone else. More than a million words between the three of them.
Indie that I haven’t narrated for: Carol Beth Anderson. I love her Magic Eaters series. And she does a pretty darn good job narrating it herself.
🥞Thank you so much for taking the time to interview!
Here is his website and social media links!
https://www.bennyfifeaudio.com/ for audio samples, blog posts, and more!
On Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/fife_benjamin
On Soundcloud:
OneReadingNurse.com 
4 replies on “Sunday Brunch Author Interview Series: Featuring Benjamin Fife!”
This was a great interview! I have so much respect for narrators. Having to give each character their own voice and making listeners hear what the character is feeling must be so difficult. Audiobooks have really improved my reading game over the last few years. They have become so convenient.
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I think being a narrator would be amazing but so hard! I couldn’t differentiate between voices well.
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So thankful for authors and voice actors! A narrator can make or break a book for me! Interesting interview!
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This is a very interesting interview. I am amazed at how narrators, who do all the voices in a book, can keep them straight in their mind. Then throw in accents! Kudos to them!!
I have some memory issues, from natural aging, strokes in my 30s, and chronic migraines. I quit reading for a lot of years because by the time I got to the middle of a book I forgot what the beginning was. I found audiobooks last year. Now, I listen while I read. I don’t know why it helps but I can remember what I’m reading while even reading faster! I am SO thankful I found them! (Sorry about the long reply! 😁)
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