Allyson Ryan

What was the first audiobook you performed?

Short Change by Patricia Smiley

What title or series are you best known for?

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

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

Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson
The Husbands by Chandler Baker
Retro by Jessica Goldstein
The New Rules of Women’s Health by Meghan Rabbitt

Where else have we heard your voice?

Frontier Communications commercial as the voice of “Alexa”
United Way of Atlanta- “God” voice
American Red Cross commercial VO
Mastercard commercial VO

What do you always have in the booth?

A coffee cup full of Ricola Cough Drops, (they don’t dry me out, don’t come at me), nasal spray, expensive hand lotion, (because otherwise I have to keep re-applying!), Vicks Vapo-rub nasal inhaler, (try it, it will change your life) Blistex, which I hate but I keep using because I haven’t bought a new lip balm yet, (it’s so wet and squishy ugh), and a giant water bottle whose top has to stay closed, otherwise I can hear the air pass over it on the mic.

How did you come to performing audiobooks?

Classic actor story: I was a cater waiter working the Penguin Random House Audio holiday party. When I met Dan Musselman, the head of the LA branch in 2006, he let me come in to audition when I asked “what was this mysterious place was with all the studios and how can I be a part of it”.

Anything else you’d like a listener to know?

I’ve been doing this for 20 years now and it never gets old. There is nothing more fulfilling to me than loving a book, getting to instinctually feel out the beats and rhythm, the character voices, and then have the author give you the thumbs up. Ah, no greater feeling.