Join the Blog Tour for The New York Saga Starting September 15th

Join the Blog Tour for The New York Saga Starting September 15th

by | Sep 6, 2019 | Discussion, History, Uncategorized

The New York Saga is a trilogy which tells the stories of three generations of an Irish-Italian family in New York from the 1890s to the 1960s.

The first book in the series From Here to Fourteenth Street takes place in the 1890s. Irish cop Tom McGlory meets Italian immigrant Vita Caputo by chance on the street as a street urchin picks his pocket, and sparks fly. This is the story of their rocky friendship/courtship.

The life of Vita and Tom’s son Billy, a talented musician and composer takes center stage in Bootleg Broadway. Set in the early 1930s during the Great Depression and Prohibition, Billy finds himself behind the scenes at New York’s most popular clubs, speak easys, and even his own Broadway musical. Before he knows it, Billy is in over his head in the world of rum running and organized crime.

Billy’s daughter Victoria is the heroine of The End of Camelot which begins in November of 1963 as her husband, TV news anchor Jack Ward is killed in Dallas on the eve of the Kennedy Assassination. Even though the Dallas police close the book on the investigation of Jack’s death, Vikki is bound and determined to find out what really happened to Jack.

Join The New York Saga’s blog tour which starts September 15. You can find out more details here:

https://audiobookwormpromotions.com/the-new-york-saga/

 

The Singing Lady—My First Experience with “Audiobooks”

The Singing Lady—My First Experience with “Audiobooks”

by | May 29, 2019 | Discussion, History

As a child growing up in New York many of the adults in my family read stories to me, but my first experience of someone reading me a story and creating distinct and unique voices for all of the characters, was when I listened to Ireene Wicker, The Singing Lady on WNYC radio. Like millions of children before me, I was enchanted by The Singing Lady and her stories, but most of all, I loved her voices. At the time, I never thought that I could or would tell stories with voices, but apparently, a seed was planted.

What I never knew until writing this, was that Ireene Wicker had been a pioneer of children’s programming on radio and television. She had been The Singing Lady since the 1930s and 1940s when her radio show Kellogg’s Singing Lady was considered essential childhood listening. Her early shows were more storytelling than singing. She recorded many records of children’s stories that were very popular. She transitioned from radio to TV in 1948 and was one of the most popular stars of early children’s television. Kellogg’s had sponsored her show until her name appeared in the Red Scare propaganda magazine Red Channels and she was blacklisted in 1950, putting a halt to their sponsorship, and her career in radio and TV.

Ireene Wicker was never able to remove the stigma of being blacklisted in the 1950s completely, but she was recognized for her outstanding contributions to radio and television in 1960 with a Peabody Lifetime Achievement Award.

I’d like to thank Ireene Wicker for unknowingly planting a seed. She showed me how a woman could tell stories with many voices. Despite the Red Scare, she was very successful, and her work reached many children, perhaps those children, like me, love audiobooks today.

The Radio Reader—Starting Each Day in College Listening to 30 Minutes of an “Audiobook”

The Radio Reader—Starting Each Day in College Listening to 30 Minutes of an “Audiobook”

by | May 29, 2019 | Discussion, History

I studied music as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I’m fond of telling people that when I graduated from high school, even though most kids received a typewriter for a high school graduation gift, my Dad gave me a radio. I had to borrow a typewriter each week to write a paper for my Freshman English class, and I listened to my radio each morning as I began my day.

East Lansing, MI the home of Michigan State University was also home to WKAR radio where Dick Estell, The Radio Reader read 30 minutes of fiction each morning to me through my beloved radio. Dick Estell didn’t really create voices for his characters, but I loved his readings and never missed an installment, except when I was out of range.

The Radio Reader could be heard on about 100 NPR stations throughout the United States and claimed about 1.5 million listeners. Dick Estell recorded and produced the show from 1964 to 2016. Estell chose recently released books, often best sellers. He read about 12 books a year.

Thank you, Dick Estell, for allowing me to stay abreast of recently released popular books during my college years when I certainly didn’t have time to read them myself. Your work also planted a seed which later grew into a segment of my own radio show.

Unbedtime Stories—My Own Foray into Radio Storytelling

Unbedtime Stories—My Own Foray into Radio Storytelling

by | May 29, 2019 | Discussion, History

I never started out to be like Dick Estell or Ireene Wicker, but in fact, the Unbedtime Stories segment of my radio show Dancin’ in the Fast Lane with Ann Arbor premiered along with the show in April of 1993. My radio show was, and still is a music show on KFJC 89.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area each Wednesday morning from 6 to 10 am. I added the Unbedtime Stories segment to my show because I wanted to learn to cold read—to be able to pick up a script and just read it cold.

Unbedtime Stories featured up-and-coming works by up-and-coming authors read by me. Later it included writers who participated in NANOWRIMO, National Novel Writing Month—which one of my listeners introduced me to, and which debuted in the San Francisco Bay Area. For twenty years, I read (or hosted) Unbedtime Stories.

Then audiobooks came along. Since I had read stories on the radio for years, I figured I should narrate audiobooks. In December of 2015, I got started, and I’ve been going strong ever since. To date, I’ve produced about 40 books for Audible.

More than twenty-five years later my radio alter ego Ann Arbor still hosts the show Dancin’ in the Fast Lane, but now that I’m narrating audiobooks when I’m not on the air, I find that I’m reading fewer stories on air.