Anniversaries & Landmarks

This month marks the second anniversary of our first independently produced audiobook: Henry Beston’s The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod. It was a wonderful way to launch Silver Hollow’s audiobook line, and it will always be a special title for us.

The seaside cabin on Cape Cod where Beston lived was declared a National Literary Landmark in 1964, although it was swept away in a winter storm in 1978. Now the Maine farm that Beston shared with his writer-wife, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and their two daughters, will share the same recognition. On June 21st, a celebration to mark this occasion will be held at Chimney Farm in Nobleboro, Maine. Beston’s biographer, Professor Daniel G. Payne, who assisted us in the production of the Outermost House audiobook, will be a guest speaker.

For more information about the event, you can read a local news summary here.

The Other Audies…

So June is audiobook month, and the industry kicks off the auditory celebration every year with the Audies. If you've never heard of the Audie, it’s the big award for audiobooks and spoken word entertainment, like the Emmy or the Oscar for TV and film. We've yet to hear any of this year's winners, but in the spirit of recognizing good audio, we wanted to take a moment to recommend a few of our favorites from years past (in addition to our own titles, of course!).

• The Kite Runner, written and read by Khaled Hosseini. It is an absolutely gripping audiobook.
• Here If You Need Me: A Memoir, written and read by Kate Braestrup. This book will make you cry, but it will also make you feel lucky and loved and hopeful.
• Assassination Vacation, written and read by Sarah Vowell. Vowell is the ultimate witty writer. Plus, you will unwittingly learn something about American history.
• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, written and read by Elizabeth Gilbert. It is armchair travel and a cup of coffee with your best friend all in the same place.

As we looked over this list of favorites, it struck us that we’re drawn to audiobooks in which writer and reader are one in the same. Many listeners feel this way, and we’re of two minds about it. In terms of production value, it is often difficult to listen to a reader who is not a professional actor or voice-over artist––there is lots of unsavory mouth noise, the read is monotonous, or the vocal quality is poor. But in these cases, and many others, the writer adds eloquence (or punch) to his or her own words that likely could not have been replicated by anyone else.

Happy listening!

Sounds of Summer

Acoustics, dynamics, compression, and timing are some of the audio considerations we grapple with in the studio environment. But in the natural environment this time of year, we find ourselves enamored by a different chorus.

While most studios I've worked in are soundproofed from the urban cacophony, the only real intrusion here is a passing thunderstorm and an occasional chainsaw. That's not to say it's quiet outside: there's the ever-present babble of Warner Creek, the exchange between mama warbler and chicks (pictured), and just this very evening, the munching of Hosta leaves by a resident deer just beyond the studio wall.

Winter months in the Catskills are long and quiet, so the sounds and sights that warm weather brings to the region are a welcome diversion from our own audio creations. And we never tire of nature's endless audio program.

Charlotte's audiobook debut

What better present for the 4-year-old daughter of audio publishers? Charlotte received one of these "Easi-Speak" microphones for her birthday. She's been singing renditions of her favorite Uncle Rock songs, and narrating her own original short stories! Click the title of this blog post for a sample of these superb audiobook shorts (at least to her parents ears).

Science Kids!

For the past year or so, Silver Hollow Audio has been working with public radio's Pulse of the Planet on an ambitious new project called the Kids' Science Challenge. It's a competition for 3rd to 6th-graders to come up with new ideas for scientists and engineers.

More than 750 entries came in from creative kids nationwide, and today the competition announces the finalists and four grand prize winners! And the winners are ...

• The "Candy Doctors," a team of fifth graders from Virginia Beach who came up with a tongue depressor made entirely of candy. That should help get kids to say "ah!" Cadbury's flavor chemist, Joan Harvey, will help the Candy Doctors to develop this tasty new creation.
  
• Claire, a third-grader from San Francisco, plays soccer on artificial turf, and she's noticed that the water running off the field looks dirtier than the runoff from real grass. Is one field better than the other, environmentally speaking? Oceanographer Adina Paytan will help her get to the bottom of it.
• Fifth-grader Lindsay, from North Carolina, envisions a new skateboard that rolls on balls, instead of wheels. The idea was enough to grab the attention of Paul Schmitt and Michael Bream, prominent skateboard engineers and developers in California. Lindsay will fly out there to collaborate on a prototype!
• And Kamau, a sixth-grader (and fellow audio-lover) from Harlem, has some new ideas about sending the sounds of earth into space, a great way to let E.T. know what we're all about! Astronomers at SETI will work with Kamau to develop some audio messages.

Check out kidsciencechallenge.com for photos of the winners, and to watch as these unique scientist/grade-schooler collaborations unfold.

"Reality Audio"

Earlier this month, I was listening on the radio to an FAA-released audio excerpt of the conversation between US Airways flight 1549 and air traffic control, moments before the plane splashed down into the Hudson River.

I was struck by the remarkable calm and professionalism in the midst of an emergency situation.

In the TV and radio performance class I teach, we discuss how even in a news delivery, reporters and anchors are performing. And certainly there is performance in "reality" TV. But often the most striking material is completely free of any hint of performance, or even self awareness.

There is a beauty in the economy of words. No small talk. No triviality. Every word uttered is consequential. And what a wonderful example this is.

1% = H2O

Last year Silver Hollow Audio signed on with 1% for the Planet. Members of 1% pledge to donate 1% of their annual gross earnings to environmental non-profits. Considering the kinds of audiobooks we do––nature and travel––and the location of our studio in the middle of the Catskill Mountains, it perfectly complements who we are and what we do.

So in December it was time for us to choose this year’s recipient. As a way to simplify the selection process we focused on water, in homage to our first author, Henry Beston, whose book, The Outermost House, is about the ocean and our connection to it. After vetting a few charities through Charity Navigator, we chose a group close to home, called Riverkeeper. Riverkeeper has been successfully safeguarding the Hudson River since 1966. We support its mission and goals, and we think Beston (and Thoreau) would have, too.