Gail Shalan

What was the first audiobook you performed?

The Lady and The Lionheart by Joanne Bischof.

What title or series are you best known for?

The Women of Arlington Hall by Jane Healy.

If a listener wanted to get to know your work, which of your audiobooks would you point them to?

Alone by Megan E. Freeman
This Terrible True Thing by Jenny Laden
The Shutouts by Gabrielle Korn
The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic and Murder by Kiri Callaghan
The Survivor’s Guild by Gabriella Saab
Wait For Me by Amy Jo Burns

What do you always have in the booth?

“A bevy of bevvies, lip balm, spiky ball to roll my feet on, tiny stuffed highland cow”

How did you come to performing audiobooks?

“I was lucky to be invited to an info session about ACX at Audible for LAMDA alums lead by Katie Kellgren and Scott Brick… on the train ride home, I got to sit next to Katie. She told me that audiobooks had given her the deep joy of acting every day, as well as creative and financial freedom to say yes to more developmental and fringe theatre work. It really inspired me to pursue this medium of storytelling. I then set up a closet booth and booked a few gigs on ACX, one of which brought me to Blackstone via an author I’d previously narrated for on ACX. Jesse Bickford was the first producer to hire me and then, six years later, hired me for my first Audie Nominated (and Awarded) title, This Terrible True Thing by Jenny Laden!”

Anything else you’d like a listener to know?

“I love audiobooks and audio storytelling so very much— it’s such a gift to get to do this work that ignites imagination, brings us together asynchonously, and creates accessibility to worlds we might not otherwise get to visit. I want to thank the authors, producers, engineers, directors, project managers, post-production, and distributors who make these worlds possible and, above all, the listeners who join us there. With absolute reverence and appreciation for the traditional ( very effective and cool) sector of narration that is a single performer reading the words of a new or old text for a single listener (how intimate, powerful, and timeless it is) — I’m currently very excited to see where this format will take us! As the audiobook space explores more dynamic, expressive, adaptive, immersive expressions of audio storytelling, I’m thrilled to be a part of it all.”