August 12, 2025 • 49 mins
If you are a fan of audiobooks, you probably know Julia Whelan’s voice, but today on Bookmarked, she is speaking directly to us! The award-winning audiobook narrator, actor, and author joins us to talk about the Netflix adaptation of her novel My Oxford Year. Julia opens up about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into giving voice to other people's stories and why she’s become a powerful advocate for audiobook narrators in an industry that often leaves them underpaid and overworked.
She also shares the mission behind her new audio-first publishing company, Audiobrary, which aims to create fairer, more sustainable opportunities for narrators and authors alike.
Like what you heard? Subscribe to the Bookmarked newsletter HERE for more buzzy book talk, and be sure to follow us @reesesbookclub for more.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - find it HERE
My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan - find it HERE
The Women by Kristin Hannah - find it HERE
Beach Read by Emily Henry - find it HERE
Franny and Zooey by J.D Salinger - find it HERE
Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid - find it HERE
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter - find it HERE
The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King - find it HERE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Danielle Robay (00:00):
Bookmarked by Reese's book Club is presented by Apple Books.
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. I'm Danielle Robe
and this week we're talking to the adele of audio books.
What does that mean? I could give you my opinion,
but I think our guest, Julia Wayln, should be the
one to share.
Julia Whelan (00:19):
People have said to me is that my voice sounds trustworthy.
So this story may go in places you're not expecting,
but I know where we're going.
Danielle Robay (00:30):
You may recognize that voice. It's iconic because Julia has
narrated over seven hundred audio books in her career. She's
done all of Emily Henry's books, all of Taylor Jenkin
Reid's books, Kristin Hannah titles, and even the audiobook that
changed the literary game, Gone Girl, by Jillian Flynn, from
(00:51):
beach reads to psychological thrillers. She's delivered hit after hit
straight to your earbuds. But Julia isn't just the voice
behind the stories. She's also the author of one and
On August first, the film adaptation of her debut novel
My Oxford Year, officially dropped on Netflix, and later in
(01:12):
the episode if You've Ever Dreamed of becoming an author.
Stay tuned for an exclusive conversation with two powerhouse authors
from the Reese's Book Club Laid Up program. So, whether
you're here for plot prose or just to bask in
the vocal velvet of Julia.
Julia Whelan (01:29):
Waylen Danielle, I got you. Oh yeah, Let's turn the
page with Julia Whylen.
Danielle Robay (01:39):
Julia, Hello, welcome to the club.
Julia Whelan (01:42):
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Danielle Robay (01:44):
I'm freaking out hearing your voice in my headphones.
Julia Whelan (01:49):
Live extemporaneously.
Danielle Robay (01:51):
Oh man, I mean now I understand hearing you one
to one Why you're known as the adele of audiobook narrators.
Julia Whelan (02:00):
Apparently, yes, apparently, I'm not.
Danielle Robay (02:02):
Going to start singing Rolling in the Deep unless you
beg me too, or even just ask nicely. But instead
I want to ask you what your go to power
ballad is.
Julia Whelan (02:11):
Oh, you know, I recently rediscovered that Selene Dion song
which I can't even remember now then, but you know,
there were Nights of Nus Pleasure, and I was like,
we did not give this enough credit when it first
came out. That music video is bonkers, and I just
I love it.
Danielle Robay (02:28):
But here's my question on that, because people call you
the Adele of narrators. And they don't say the Selene Dion,
they don't say the Beyonce, they don't say the Whitney Houston.
Why do they say Adele.
Julia Whelan (02:42):
I think it's the New Yorker's never ending quest for
alliterative quality. I really think that's what it came down to.
I mean, I will take it, don't get me wrong,
but the Adele of audiobooks just has a nice alliterative
quality to it.
Danielle Robay (02:58):
I have a different opinion. Can I share please? Okay?
I think that Adele has this boundless sort of universal appeal.
She defies genre, she can do a ballad, she has
pop hits. She could really sing the phone Book and
that's you.
Julia Whelan (03:14):
Oh my gosh. Okay, that's such a better answer. I'm
taking that now for you, and I can't say it
about myself, obviously, but thank you.
Danielle Robay (03:21):
But you'll allow me. I'm going to use the word
boundless so many times in this interview.
Julia Whelan (03:25):
Great.
Danielle Robay (03:26):
I remember hearing Oprah famously saying that she emulated Barbara
Walters when she was coming up and trying to learn
how to be a host or a journalist. And I've
also heard singers say that they grew up mimicking Celine
dionnor mimicking that like Christina aguilera goottiral like growl that
she has when you have a voice as memorable as yours.
(03:50):
Was there anyone that you grew up or emulated early on?
Julia Whelan (03:54):
Oh, that is such a good question. I don't think
I did. I grew up as a child actor, so
I've had theatrical vocal training since i was nine, and
I've been very much in touch with my own voice
for a very long time, and so I don't think
I was emulating anyone specifically. I definitely learned from a
lot of other great audiobook narrators as I was coming
(04:15):
up and trying to figure out how to do the job.
But no, I think I just kind of settled into
what my narrator voice was pretty early and just kept going.
Danielle Robay (04:25):
For a while. In feminist culture, there was this idea
that women were supposed to find their voice, and now
I think it's sort of turned into women harnessing their
voice using their voice. I'm interested in the fact that
you said you found it or had it very early on.
Did you recognize that or do you recognize it in hindsight?
Julia Whelan (04:46):
I think that being the overachieving type a woman that
I am and always have been. I'm also deeply riddled
with the impulse to be a people pleaser, as I
think a lot of us are, and so it took
me a long time to come out of again that
child actor mentality of just I'll be whatever you need
me to be. I can do anything. How can I
(05:08):
help you? You know, to just saying actually, this is
what I want to do, this is who I am,
and either it works for you or it doesn't, and
trying to use my voice, all versions of my voice,
to change the things that I want to change in
the different industries that I'm a part of, and to
(05:29):
just own who I am. And that's a process I
think for every woman, whether you're a public figure or.
Danielle Robay (05:35):
Not, it is. So I'm curious about the transition from
child actor to narrator. I read that you've now narrated
over six hundred books.
Julia Whelan (05:45):
It's actually seven hundred now, yeah, oh my god.
Danielle Robay (05:49):
Yeah, So what was the book that was the turning
point in your career?
Julia Whelan (05:54):
I would probably say, gone, girl. I mean that was
back in twenty twelve, and I think that just happened
to coincide with a lot of things that were going on,
like audiobooks were just beginning to boom. You know, the
number of people that tell me that was their first
audiobook period, not just of mine, but first audiobook is significant.
And I think when you have that kind of cultural
(06:15):
juggernaut meeting with this technology of being able to have
an audiobook in your pocket, it just that was really
the thing that I think, let me believe, oh, maybe
I this could actually be a career, not just a
kind of haphazard pickup job that I do a couple
of times a year, but I could actually do this.
Danielle Robay (06:35):
And when you say this is the thing, do you
mean the success of it or the pay Like.
Julia Whelan (06:40):
What do you mean that there was a first of all,
brought enough attention to me and to the fact that
this is what I was doing now that I started
getting more offers, and at the time especially that was
sort of the way the career worked, Like you didn't
set out to go do this. Everyone that I know
fell backward into it. You know, it was just an
(07:01):
industry of can you read, come join us? And that
book was definitely a turning point where I was able
to then have enough work coming in that I could
sustain myself doing this, but yeah, even then, and at minimums.
The way that audiobooks are paid, they're not paid very well,
(07:24):
and so you have to do if you're going to
do it full time, you've got to do like seventy
books a year to keep your head above water, which
is why I have the number I have, And that's
not even There's a lot of narrators I know that
are up to one thy, twelve hundred, fifteen hundred. That's
the kind of volume you need to do to make
it a living.
Danielle Robay (07:41):
Wait, seventy books a year. So a book like Gone Girl,
how many days are you in the studio?
Julia Whelan (07:46):
Well with that book, especially because it's dual narration and
I was doing half of it, I think my sections
were ten finished hours total, so that was I think
I spent two or three days in studio doing that book.
Danielle Robay (08:00):
But a book where you were the narrator for everything
would be like a week.
Julia Whelan (08:05):
Yeah, It very much depends on the length of the book,
the complexity of the book, but yeah, I do now
I limit myself to two finished hours a day in
the booth, just for my voice and my own mental health.
It's hard to be in here for a very long time.
So I will do a ten hour book in a
work week.
Danielle Robay (08:25):
I'm not great at math, But seventy books a year,
there's not seventy weeks in a year. So you guys
are really.
Julia Whelan (08:31):
Well, right. It depends on the size of the book.
It depends on how much of the book I'm doing,
and it also that doesn't count the prep that goes
into it. Right, So all of those books that you
record have to also be read ahead of time and prepped,
and so it's just a it was a massive amount
of work.
Danielle Robay (08:48):
Wait tell, I'm interested in the prep. What does that
look like?
Julia Whelan (08:52):
So when I get a manuscript, I do a prep
read where I'm not only trying to get the tone
of the piece and the author's voices, because that's a
huge component of it, whether it's first person or third person,
whether it's thriller, whether it's romance, what's the tone, But
I'm also keeping a word list of words that I
need to know how to pronounce. And I'm also keeping
(09:12):
a character list of any speaking characters and any vocal
traits that the author is giving them. And then I'm
kind of working out a constellation of who are the
major characters that are mostly interacting in a book, so
I can start figuring out how to differentiate their voices
for the listener. Once I've done the prep read, I
send the questions off to the producer, to the author,
I have a conversation if we need to uh so
(09:35):
that by the time I get in the booth, I'm
ready to just sit down, press record and do the performance.
Danielle Robay (09:43):
So hearing you share what the prep is like. First
of all, that's pretty rigorous and time consuming for each one.
But I can't imagine that there are other narrators who
don't have acting backgrounds. That it sounds like there's so
much acting that goes into that.
Julia Whelan (09:58):
I think that's true. I think a lot of us
obviously have an acting background, But I also know some
who came in through the journalism door, or they came
in through an academic door, where they just have a
way with words and they're good storytellers and they have
a sensitivity to authorial voice. But an acting background definitely helps.
(10:18):
Which is not to say that all actors are good
at this, because they're not. It's very like it's two
different skills, like the ability to memorize lines and create
one character and maybe if you're doing film or television,
having multiple takes to work that out is very different
from trying to get through one hundred pages a day
of playing all of the characters with really no memorization involved,
(10:41):
just reading the text as error free as possible so
you can be as efficient as possible. It's a very
different skill.
Danielle Robay (10:47):
So one of my favorite parts of this podcast is
the Reese's Book Club listeners are embedded into the community,
and so I get voice notes and dms every single
episode of the guest that we have. And so many
people had requested, Julia, whyaln oh from episode one? And
(11:09):
you really are the people's princess and.
Julia Whelan (11:15):
Oh, that's a sad state of affairs.
Danielle Robay (11:17):
No it's not. I was thinking about why, and it's
because you and you inhabit so many different characters, but
you make each one sound authentic and never forced. And
I'm really wondering what the secret sauce is to sounding
like the truest version of every voice you take on WOO.
Julia Whelan (11:37):
First of all, thank you so much. That's just really gratifying, because,
as you can tell, this is a very isolating job.
I'm here recording on my own and three months later
it hits people's audible accounts, and you know there's really
no feedback, so that's very sweet. You know, this is
such a simplistic it'll probably seem like a cop out answer,
but without getting into a craft lecture about how to
(11:59):
add it really is just coming from an actor's mentality
of finding the humanity in each character, not judging them,
just asking yourself the basic basic acting questions of what
does this character want, what is their motivation? What are
they most scared of? And if you can start from
(12:20):
that basis, you really it's less about the voice that
is kind of grafted on to that and more about
just what is fueling that portrayal. That's what I need
to know about the characters before I can do them justice.
Danielle Robay (12:35):
So you're asking yourself those three to four questions you shared,
and then you mentioned that you will sometimes write the
author and ask them questions. Do you find the questions
you ask the authors similar or are they different for
every book?
Julia Whelan (12:49):
Yeah? I think it depends on the book. I mean
it also depends on the author. When it's someone like
Emily Henry, for instance, I'll just text m and say, hey,
who is in your head when you were writing this?
You know, it's like, are we talking about a young
Harrison Ford here? Is that what we're talking about? So,
you know, it's just helpful to be able to have
that shorthand with an author, But sometimes it is a
larger conversation. I have this Ya fantasy series that I've
(13:11):
been doing for seven years. We actually just wrapped it
up with book five, And in that situation, I worked
very closely with the author to build out this fantasy
world and what the different accents would sound like for
these different races and ethnicities that she had created in
this world, and trying to find those differences, and then saying, hey,
(13:33):
where are you going with this? You know what, I
don't want to paint myself into any corners like what's
going to be happening in book three four? Each project
is very different.
Danielle Robay (13:44):
You mentioned Emily Henry. So many of the big female
writers want you. Emily Henry's one of them, but also
Taylor Jenkins read Kristin Hannah, Who the Women was one
of my favorite books last year? Why do you think
that is why?
Julia Whelan (14:02):
Yeah? I ask myself that every day part of it
is absolutely the just actor sensibility of knowing that I
am going to bring that lens to the performance, like
how am I doing right by the characters that they
have toiled over creating. But I think also a lot
(14:24):
of it, especially in the case of well, actually in
the three that you mentioned, and for those three women particularly,
they know me as a writer and they trust me
in that capacity as well. And I think that's another
part of this. Why is this job is just very
suited to me? Is Yes, there's the thirty years of
acting experience, but there's also the overpriced English and Creative
(14:47):
writing degree and the fact that I live and breathe
books and I am an editor and I have my
own publishing company, and like, I just take writing very
seriously and I understand maybe what their goal is, what
they're trying to accomplish. And I really perceive my role
as being the conduit and the translator for this very
(15:10):
first adaptation that's ever going to happen. You're never going
to get a truer adaptation of a book than the audiobook,
And so for me, it's like, how do I translate
the feeling of how I feel having read it and
my writer sensibilities to the listener.
Danielle Robay (15:25):
Is there a Julia Wayln's signature.
Julia Whelan (15:27):
I don't know. I'm so bad at this. I'm so
bad at like having any self awareness. I think something
that has come up before the people have said to
me is that my voice sounds trustworthy. So oh I
like that. Yeah. So I think there's a sense that, like,
you're in good hands. This story may go in places
(15:48):
you're not expecting, but I know where we're going, so
just trust me and I'll take you through.
Danielle Robay (15:54):
It, Julia, before we take a break. I love asking
our guests what they've bookmarked this week and be a
weird fact, a fun quote, something that you've saved on Instagram,
even something you've texted your best friend about. What have
you bookmarked?
Julia Whelan (16:09):
Andrea Gibson's poem love Letter from the Afterlife. They were
an incredible, incredible poet who wrote a lot about their
own dying process, and I have been thinking about it
a lot in relationship to my Oxford year recently, because
(16:31):
I think they just nail something so beautifully about what
it means to let go of this life and step
into the next one.
Danielle Robay (16:42):
May I ask you what they nail because I think
so many beautiful writers have spoken about grief and when
they passed away. That poem permeated the internet. It hit people.
What was it?
Julia Whelan (17:01):
I think it's hope, I really do. Everything feels so
incredibly dire right now. And that's why as we talk
about this journey for my Oxford year over fourteen years,
and how many different drafts and how many different versions.
And I was actually talking to Alison, the original writer,
about this the other day, and I said, we could
have never predicted that at this particular moment in time,
(17:23):
when the culture is subsumed by war and tenuousness and
feeling like things just aren't the way they should be,
we feel this impulse to return to the poets. And
it has just been really beautiful to watch people connect
with this story. I'm just looking at the first line
of their poem, my love, I was so wrong. Dying
(17:48):
is the opposite of leaving. That just reframes the entire
experience in such a helpful, hopeful way.
Danielle Robay (17:56):
Yes, it does. That's what I'm really attaching to right now.
So I know you said when you're reading, you're taking
so many notes. What do audiobook narrators pay attention to
(18:18):
that the average reader like me wouldn't. I'm a highlighter
and I dog he or I know people don't love.
Julia Whelan (18:25):
That, but live your life, Live your life, thank you.
I am taking note of any character information that is necessary.
And this is not just vocal trait but also biographical details.
You know, if someone is growing up in Boston but
to an Italian family, that's going to have a different
(18:45):
energy than someone who's growing up in Boston but to
you know, has their families been there since the Mayflower? Like,
it's just there's a I like to know anything the
author is giving me. And then with the word lists,
with the pronunciations, I don't take anything for granted. There
have been character names, you know, Tara, and I want
(19:09):
to know how the author wants that said. I just
will not make any assumptions at this point. I've been
burned too many times, right, So those are things that
I have when I do read something for fun for pleasure,
which doesn't unfortunately happen very often. But when I do,
it always takes me about fifty pages to turn off
my prep brain. Like it's hard for me to even
remember how to read without figuring out how to pronounce
(19:32):
things as I go.
Danielle Robay (19:33):
Yeah, has your process evolved over the years?
Julia Whelan (19:38):
It has? I mean, God, when I first started, God,
this is really like back in the Jurassic period when
I first started this job, but we had you know,
they would tend me printouts. They would send me the
printed out manuscript, and I was prepping off of actual pages,
so I would highlight characters before I realized that that
actually just slows me down because I'm translating like who
(19:59):
was Blue? Again? At this point, it's just very streamlined.
I do all my prep off the page. Do you
eat any dairy not on recording days? What do you
eat the night before? I can eat anything the night before.
I won't drink the night before. Just anything that dehydrates
is not good, especially because I live in the desert,
so I feel like I'm constantly fighting that battle, right,
(20:21):
But dairy on the day is really the culprit.
Danielle Robay (20:24):
Yeah? Or do you do throat code? Or what's your drink? Yeah?
Julia Whelan (20:27):
Oh I got throat code. I have a few different
types of teas that I switch out, but mainly it's
just usually this huge mason jar of water.
Danielle Robay (20:35):
You don't have an audio engineer, No, I do it
all myself.
Julia Whelan (20:39):
What Yeah? Yeah, you're a one man band, I am.
I mean I send off the files once I've recorded them,
so they get these raw butt edited files and then
they go in and listen, clean it up, and send
me back any corrections that I have to make. And
I do the corrections, and I send those off to
them and they layer them in and yeah.
Danielle Robay (21:02):
Wow, So now I understand what you mean that there
really is no feedback.
Julia Whelan (21:06):
There's no feedback, No, it is you.
Danielle Robay (21:09):
Yeah, okay, Well that brings me to my question about
sex scenes, because you.
Julia Whelan (21:14):
Record, that's that's a good segue to talking about being
by yourself. Well, you record a fair amount of romance
novel I do, I do? Is it more or less
embarrassing acting those out when you're in the booth alone
rather than having somebody there to me? Sex scenes are
just like in any other type of genre, you always
(21:37):
have the climactic scenes, you know, whether it's in fantasy,
it's like that's when the battle happens, or in a
thriller that's when the killer gets caught. So it's just
I'm looking at it always through that lens of like,
what is the intention of this scene? This is where
the first time we get to see these characters finally,
you know, come together. For lack of a better anyway,
(21:58):
I don't get weird about it, or it's not embarrassing,
or it's not hard to do at this point of
just been doing too many of them. But I have
recently done a few duets where you know, I am
working with other people at the same time, and even that,
even that's not really weird or sexy because there's just
so many other things going on. You know, you're listening
for any audio problems, or you're you're listening for your
(22:20):
making mistakes, you're going back that you don't ever really
like get into a flow. I don't know, it's the same.
It's equivalent to doing something like that on camera where
it's not sexy because you've just have so many other
considerations that you're worried about you're not able to let go.
Danielle Robay (22:34):
Yeah, what have been some of your favorite twists to narrate?
Julia Whelan (22:38):
Ooh, well, that turn in Gone Girl is legendary.
Danielle Robay (22:43):
Do you know how many authors is that I've interviewed
on this on this podcast have cited Gone Girl.
Julia Whelan (22:49):
I mean, it's very hard for me, as like a
lover the lover of history that I am, to say
that nothing had ever been done before, because it absolutely had,
but that feels like it had been done before, and
so it changed everything.
Danielle Robay (23:03):
Did you know it was special when you were recording it.
Julia Whelan (23:05):
Yes, That's the one book I've ever been able to
predict would be huge.
Danielle Robay (23:10):
Did you ever narrate books that you thought would be
huge and kind of flop?
Julia Whelan (23:13):
Yes, there have been many books that I've just thought
were brilliant or and then I just couldn't understand why
they didn't they didn't take off sometimes. I mean, I
think Beat Reads a perfect example too, where I actually
blurbed that book for m before I was narrating it.
I just as a writer. I was blurbing it for her,
and I told her I was like, I think this
is going to change everything for you. Like I just
(23:34):
had a very strong sense of like that was the
book that we all needed at the time that it
came out. It just felt perfectly suited to the moment
that it was coming out.
Danielle Robay (23:43):
In Well, Your Baby, Your Project, My Oxford Year just
dropped on Netflix. Yeah, I'm halfway through it right now,
and my mom and I are what.
Julia Whelan (23:53):
A good turning point? The halfway point.
Danielle Robay (23:56):
Is so I haven't hit I haven't hit the moment, Okay, okay,
but I will say a big congratulations is in order,
because everybody has been talking about the twist, which is
the moment that you sort of alluded to what went
into changing the end of the movie a bit rather
than keeping it authentic to the book.
Julia Whelan (24:18):
So to have this conversation, we have to actually go
back in time to the origin story of this book,
which is that it actually started as a screenplay by
the wonderful screenwriter Alison Burnett. And in the Hollywood development process,
I was actually hired as a writer, a screenwriter who
had gone to Oxford to come in and work on
some of the setting stuff in the screenplay to make
(24:40):
it as authentically Oxford as possible. And in that process
of rewrites, the producers and I got to know each other,
and they got to know my opinions about the story,
and we all just realized that there was like so
much here that it was perfectly suited for a book.
And so so I went off and started writing the
(25:02):
book and kind of reverse adapted the story and changed
quite a bit along the way. But that's why the
movie itself and the screenplay has always kind of been
on a separate development trajectory. And then the book is
the book and has been out for seven years and
what's absolutely hilarious is in watching people's reaction to the
(25:23):
ending in the original original version of the screenplay. In
Allison's original version, see this is just spoiler central, but
the character it ends very much the way that the
movie ends. Let me put it that way. But in
every other draft of the screenplay up to and the
one that I reverse adapted and up to and including
(25:44):
the shooting draft of the screenplay, it ends very much
like the book ends. And so it was in the
editing room which Corey and Sophia did a really wonderful
interview with Mariene Lee Lanker from Entertainment Weekly about why
they decided to change the ending, and so it's just
it's incredible that that decision kind of in post to
(26:06):
change the ending actually brought it back to the way
it originally ended in the very first version of the screenplay.
Danielle Robay (26:13):
I think that there's and I guess I only know
this from my own perspective, but the way I produce
or would produce a podcast so like something audible, is
different than how I would write something sometimes, and it's
different than how I would produce it for television. And
you've narrated so many audiobooks. I can imagine that there's
(26:35):
a difference in writing for audio versus writing for the page.
How much did narrating influence how you wrote this.
Julia Whelan (26:45):
At that point in my career, It really didn't. I
was writing it as a writer. I that was my
history with the project, both as a screenplay and in prose.
That was I wrote it as a novel first and foremost.
My second book, I had a little bit more consideration
to the idea of it in audio, especially because it
(27:06):
was about audiobook narrators. And my third book, Casanova LLC,
was written specifically for audio, like I actually only did
the ebook of that just because people were asking for it,
But I never intended for it to be read, so
it was done almost as like an eight hour play.
That's the way I feel about that, and I enjoy
(27:28):
both practices enormously. But I am first and foremost a writer.
I am a novelist. That's how I think about it.
I think mostly as how it's going to be read,
not how it's going to be listened to.
Danielle Robay (27:44):
Well, you narrated your own audiobook of this, I am
wondering if you ever considered having someone else do it.
Julia Whelan (27:50):
I actually wanted to have someone else do it. There was, Yeah,
there was a narrator named Catherine Kelgrin who was just perfect.
She was an icon, She was incredible, and I wanted
her to do it, and she unfortunately passed away, so
I was sort of left with I always feel like,
(28:11):
in certain ways I felt like I was doing a
bad Catherine Kelgrin impersonation, like I just wanted her voice
on it.
Danielle Robay (28:16):
I'm so sorry.
Julia Whelan (28:17):
Had she been around for this huge boom that has happened,
I think more people would have discovered. She was beloved
and she is still to this day. People listen to
her her audiobooks and then are devastated when they find
out she's no longer here. But God, I would have
loved to have she should have been here for this,
(28:38):
to watch this industry finally get the attention it deserves.
It's just deeply sad to me.
Danielle Robay (28:44):
Do you ever think about that in terms of your
own legacy? Because I actually didn't think about it until
you just shared that. But books are so eternal in
ways that movies sometimes aren't because technology changes film and
so you know, like we don't want to watch black
and white movies as much anymore.
Julia Whelan (29:03):
But audiobooks sustain such a good point. I notice from
the inside of it. I notice there are certain differences.
I notice that there have been changes in performance, the
types of the way we perform audio books, the depth
and breadth of the talent that now do it, and
the different voices that exist in it. And it's just
(29:25):
become such an incredibly rich storytelling medium that you're so right,
Like people return to their comfort audio books the way
I will watch When Harry Met Sally, like whenever it's
on TV, that's just the rule, Like I have to
stop and watch the whole thing. And there are people
that feel that way about audiobooks. Why is it When
Harry Met Sally? Because it's the perfect movie.
Danielle Robay (29:48):
It is really perfect. So you've been actually very outspoken
about the audiobook industry as a whole, especially the way
narrators and voice actors are compensated. Yes, I actually did
(30:12):
not realize.
Julia Whelan (30:13):
Most people don't. Most people don't, But.
Danielle Robay (30:16):
Hearing how you prep I now understand why you've become
an activist in the space. What have people like me
and others not realized about what needs to change about
this industry.
Julia Whelan (30:29):
So the big elephant in the room is that narrators
don't get royalties, and the rest of publishing functions on
a royalty model. And also as does Hollywood as a
union actor, like I said, who's been working since I
was nine, I get residuals on Lifetime movies I did
twenty years ago. But audiobooks, of which I have seven
hundred out there in the world, I see nothing for.
(30:52):
And this would be one thing if the upfront payment,
if the buyouts were significant, but they're not. And the
main thing that I keep going back to and why
I will never shut up about this until it changes,
is because, as you said, audiobooks are now a part
of media at large. They have grown, They've exploded so much.
(31:14):
This is a multi billion dollar industry with double digit
growth year over year. And I know, as a traditionally
published author myself, how hard it is for authors to
have discoverability. How do people find your books, you know,
in this oversaturated media market. And one of the answers
to that, and a big part of it is your
audiobook narrator who is narrating your book, Because listeners follow
(31:38):
narrators very often, and so to be in a position
where I'm I'm helping people find the books. That is
benefiting the author, it's benefiting the publisher, and it won't
benefit me, especially at a time when we are kind
of under attack by synthetic voice and AI coming into
the market. I don't I can see the future. In
(31:59):
the future is you either have celebrities narrating audio books
or robots narrating audiobooks. And yet all of the books
I've recorded over the last fifteen years are still out there,
They're still being sold, people are still enjoying them because
they're antiques. At this point, it's like, oh, real human
voice by real professional narrators, and I'm not getting anything
(32:20):
for that. Yeah, that's a fundamental problem that I have.
I decided I devoted the last few years of my
life to trying to fix. And it's a worthy fight.
Danielle Robay (32:33):
Have you gotten anywhere.
Julia Whelan (32:34):
I had to start my own audio publishing company. I
couldn't get the audio publishers as they exist now, you know,
the corporate structures to change this, you know, And I
just realized that I can't. I just can't hear anymore.
Allison King (32:49):
You know.
Julia Whelan (32:49):
Well, it's just not done. That's not the way we
do things. Well. We could. Systems are built by people.
We can revise them. So I'm doing it now so
that no one can say, well, no one else does that,
that's not the way it's done. Well, I'm doing it.
Danielle Robay (33:04):
The name of your company is Audiobraary. Yes, yeah, which
is very cute. I like that.
Julia Whelan (33:09):
Thank you.
Danielle Robay (33:10):
If you can get into the weeds, I know it's hard.
What makes it stand apart from the rest of the industry.
Julia Whelan (33:16):
Yeah, So Audiobraray is two things. We're an audio publisher,
so we license audio rights from authors or presses with books,
and we create audio versions and you can get them anywhere.
We are also a direct to consumer retail channel. So
when you buy directly through audiobreary, the author and the
narrator who is getting a royalty benefits greatly because there's
(33:39):
not a retail shop taking a large percentage off the top, which,
by the way, in audio it's so much larger than
in any other digital product. I mean we are talking
audible can take anywhere between fifty and seventy five percent
off the top of audio, so even what the author
and the publishers are left with is so small. So
(34:00):
we do a direct consumer model as well, and when
you buy directly through audiobreray, you can get bonus material.
We always do interviews with the author with the narrators,
and we also have a rental model, so you can
rent our projects. And now we're starting to partner with
We're opening the platform up to other people who have
existing audio who want to treat their narrators better and
(34:20):
want to be on our shelves. We're just starting to
open that up. But this has been this has been
a labor of love. I'd have no entrepreneurial spirit. I
really want that to be clear. I am doing this
out of righteous rage and I would love to just
be narrating and writing, but I just can't. I could
not let this go unfixed any longer. So that's what
(34:43):
I'm doing. And we've been up and running for about
a year and a half now and we have I
don't know, fifteen projects or something of our own. And
then not to mention the books that we are also
adding to our shelves. But it's a curated collection, and
it's just you know that if you come to audio
Berri to be human, written, human narrated, and the money
(35:03):
is going directly into the pockets of the people who
actually created the stuff.
Danielle Robay (35:08):
It sounds like it would be really important for some
big authors to do this through audio.
Julia Whelan (35:13):
Rary. Yes, I mean, the part of the problem is
that at this point in the way publishing works, if
you sell to a traditional publisher, you will not be
able to retain your audio rights. They won't carve them
out anymore. They used to, but they know how valuable
they are now, so they don't. So we deal with
a lot of backlist, and we deal with a lot
of original audio projects, and also people who just decide
(35:38):
they're done with this system and they want to try
something new. So and I still work for traditional publishers,
and I have wonderful relationships with them, and I just
love I love this industry so much that I want
to try to find a way to make it sustainable
for the future, because I can't see a version where
(36:03):
people are paid appropriately in what is coming down the pike.
Danielle Robay (36:07):
I mean, it sounds like, I know you're not a complainer,
but it sounds like it's it's almost untenable to record
seventy books a year.
Julia Whelan (36:16):
This is the other thing is like to exactly to
that point as I watch, especially as I just turned
forty one, and even I can't do the volume I
used to do, And I look at the narrators who
are now getting into their sixties and seventies, and it's like,
you should not have to be doing this, Like you
should be able to make passive income the way everyone
(36:36):
else is off of the products that you helped create.
Danielle Robay (36:41):
You mentioned human a few times. How can you, an expert,
tell the difference between an AI voice and a human voice?
Julia Whelan (36:50):
I think it happens over duration. So some of these
voices are actually very impressive, and they've gotten a lot better,
but they're good for like thirty seconds or forty five
seconds when you're listening to an eleven hour audiobook. The
repetitiveness and the kind of redundancy is where you can
really tell. Now that said, I'm not willing to bet
(37:12):
the farm that they're never going to get there. I
think they will. I personally think the technology is going
to get so good that you won't be able to
tell the difference. But the entire point of what I'm
trying to do is, yeah, but what if you know
the difference? Is that going to change the way you purchase?
Where will you put your support? You want books to
be able to be available and accessible to people, and
(37:33):
if that means a synthetic voice narration for certain titles.
I understand that as long as the people have been
compensated and consented to having their voices cloned. But for
most people, you want if a human wrote the thing.
I want a human interpreting my words. I just do. Yeah.
Danielle Robay (37:54):
I'm going to switch the energy up a little bit
because we do something called speed read. We're going to
put sixty seconds on the clock and we're going to
see just how many rapid fire literary questions you can
get through. Lord, okay, okay, three two one. I saw
on your Instagram bio that you identify as the voice
inside your head. Who is the voice inside of Julia
(38:17):
Wayland's head.
Julia Whelan (38:18):
It's an authorial voice and it's George Elliott. And it
was a line I actually wrote into my Oxford year saying,
She's the voice of God in my head.
Danielle Robay (38:25):
What is one literary trope you would ban forever?
Julia Whelan (38:28):
I really don't enjoy enemies to lovers for the most part,
when the banter is mean rivals to lovers, I can
do enemies to lovers.
Danielle Robay (38:34):
I can't great distinction than what's one that you'll defend
with your life?
Julia Whelan (38:38):
Sex lessons or kissing lessons whatever you want to call it.
I love that best.
Danielle Robay (38:44):
What's a book that you'd wish you'd narrated?
Julia Whelan (38:47):
Ooh, if Salinger's estate ever opens up, his uvra, I
want to do Franny and Zoe. They have to let
me do that one.
Danielle Robay (38:55):
What's your favorite audiobook to recommend?
Julia Whelan (38:57):
Daisy Jones and the Six because I think it's a
perfect gateway audiobook.
Danielle Robay (39:00):
Okay, one accent? You'd love to never do again?
Julia Whelan (39:03):
I really can't, for the life of me do Australian,
so I would like that to go away.
Danielle Robay (39:07):
What's a book that you wish you could hear again
for the first time?
Julia Whelan (39:11):
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter narrated by Eduardo Ballerini.
Danielle Robay (39:15):
Which fictional character do you secretly think you're most like?
Julia Whelan (39:19):
It's actually Jamie from my Oxford Year.
Danielle Robay (39:21):
Do you ever peek at the last page? First?
Julia Whelan (39:23):
No, not a psychopath.
Danielle Robay (39:26):
Would you narrate your memoir audiobook?
Julia Whelan (39:29):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, if I ever. I'm never writing a memoir,
but yeah, I would have to narrate it.
Danielle Robay (39:33):
You have ten minutes in a bookstore. Which section are
you heading to?
Julia Whelan (39:37):
First? Oh? God, nineteenth century history?
Danielle Robay (39:39):
Whoa Julia?
Julia Whelan (39:41):
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I had no idea
you were a nerd. I'm a sixty year old dad.
I'm so sorry.
Danielle Robay (39:49):
Why nineteenth century because.
Julia Whelan (39:51):
That's my period. That's just what I've always loved. Cool
the Victorians.
Danielle Robay (39:55):
I love that.
Julia Whelan (39:57):
Yeah.
Danielle Robay (39:58):
Uh, Julia, You're such a dynamic person. Thank you for this.
Julia Whelan (40:03):
There was a question coming. I was like, no, I was.
Danielle Robay (40:06):
Just thinking, like, I understand why you're able to tap
into so many characters because you are so tapped into yourself.
Julia Whelan (40:17):
Oh, thank you. Oh my gosh, Wow, what a compliment.
Thank you. I really appreciate that, and this was delightful.
Danielle Robay (40:28):
Before we go, I want to introduce a new segment
to the Club now. As you know, I've been a
fan of Reese's Book Club for years as a reader,
but Reese's Book Club also fosters community among writers. Each year,
they provide five emerging writers with an all expenses paid
writing retreat, a three month mentorship with a published author,
(40:50):
and marketing support. It's called lid Up, and for a
few of these incredible writers, their novels have actually debuted
as Reese's book Club picks.
Life changing.
I had the opportunity to sit down with one of
the LitUp writers Alison King and her mentor Adrian Young.
Allison King (41:08):
Now.
Danielle Robay (41:08):
Allison's novel The Phoenix Pencil Company was the Reese's book
Club pick for June, and we had an exclusive conversation
about storytelling, mentorship, and the power of the pen And
I just really want to talk about the magic between
the two of you, not just in what you write,
but in also how you created this story together. What's
(41:30):
something unexpected or beautiful that happened during this process, Allison?
Allison King (41:35):
Oh, because I haven't had any formal writing training, really,
a lot of it has been by instinct. But then
I felt like Adrian was able to articulate to me
why things were working. So it wasn't just like this
doesn't feel like it's working, but also like this is
really working because of X, Y and Z. So I
(41:57):
remember the specific thing was, I think the book starts
with a picture of two women, and then at the
very end it also ends with a picture of two women,
and I remember Adrian telling me like, oh, I really
hope they like take a picture together at this scene
in the whole moment, Yeah exactly, And I had like
done that by instinct, not really thinking about it or
like even questioning it really, but then being able to
(42:19):
hear Adrian tell me why that worked. I feel like
leveled up my writing and in a way that I
wasn't expecting at all.
Danielle Robay (42:27):
So part of the lit Up Fellowship is a writing retreat.
I kind of imagine you, guys, somewhere under the Tuscan Sun,
snacking on Parmesan Chris drinking rose or in my alternate
reality or romantic see, I imagine you in a cozy
wood cabin sipping something warm, journaling in a linen robe,
with someone in the background roasting sweet potatoes. I really
(42:51):
thought about this, but I also think I might have
seen that in a movie one time. So I'm wondering
what actually happens at a writer's retreat.
Allison King (43:01):
Honestly, I don't think it was too different from what
you described, Like it was quite fancy.
Julia Whelan (43:06):
Wow.
Allison King (43:07):
Well, we were in Nashville, and we were in a
fancy hotel, and I guess we were mostly in the
hotel the whole time, where we had some a conference
room or too, and we had the like the really
fancy room at the top as well, just to like
have meetings in the whole littlep cohort. So there were
five of us, and then our mentors as well, and
then also a team from We Need Diverse Books and
(43:28):
matt Cap Retreats who were running workshops for us, and
we just had like workshops or writing time in the morning,
and then we would meet with our mentors to talk
about what was going on, and we had lunch together,
and I remember the lunches were really fun in a
way of being able to hear all the mentors talk
to each other about the writing business and publishing industry.
Adrienne Young (43:51):
It was a different kind of writing retreat because it
was very like structured and they were doing workshops and things,
but then we were all so meeting and having meals together.
And what I really loved about it was that even
among the mentors, it was all writers at different stages
(44:11):
of their career and different levels of experience, and so
it was like a chance for me to also be
talking and getting wisdom from writers who are like putting
out like their twenty fifth book or whatever.
Danielle Robay (44:25):
And I can imagine the way you're describing this retreat
is like being around writers, whether it's the mentees or mentors,
and you're all in this very specific position. It must
have just felt really nice to feel seen and like
you're in this group of people who understand you. Yeah,
I mean I felt like that.
Adrienne Young (44:43):
I think also, what would have been really cool for
me if I had had that opportunity before I was published.
Julia Whelan (44:49):
Publishing is really hard.
Adrienne Young (44:50):
It takes a lot of work to actually get a
career going. But also the people who do it are
just normal, regular people, and in that way, it's like
very accessible. You know. I think that it's a matter
of kind of like timing and a little luck, you know,
in how long you can hang in there to try
(45:10):
to break in.
Danielle Robay (45:11):
Why did you say yes to being a mentor in
this space to begin with?
Adrienne Young (45:16):
Well, I very much believe in what the lit up
program is trying to achieve. You know, they are achieving.
And I am a big fan of Reese's Book Club
because my book was picked for Reese's Book Club in
the first year of the pandemic, you know, when it
could have just been totally buried like so many.
Danielle Robay (45:39):
Good books were.
Adrienne Young (45:41):
And I really feel like having that opportunity and exposure
from Reese's Book Club was.
Julia Whelan (45:47):
Vital for that series.
Adrienne Young (45:49):
And when there is an opportunity to kind of give
back and help somebody else traverse that part a little
bit is really valuable.
Julia Whelan (45:58):
But yeah, it's just.
Adrienne Young (46:00):
A very cool program, very cool initiative, and very needed
and timely.
Danielle Robay (46:05):
I think what is both of your best advice for
anyone sitting at home staring at a blank Google doc
wondering if they have a story worth telling?
Julia Whelan (46:15):
Just that you do.
Adrienne Young (46:16):
I think like we all do, right, And the craft
of writing is something that you really have to work
on and learn over time. But having a story is
something that everyone has, you know, and it's not necessarily
even autobiographical, but just your perspective, your lens like on
(46:38):
the world, and anyone who has like the hunger to
write fiction, especially.
Julia Whelan (46:46):
You can do it.
Adrienne Young (46:47):
You can learn how to do it. And even how
Alison was saying, like she's doing so much from instinct, right,
and I think a lot of people have those instincts.
Danielle Robay (46:57):
Yeah, there's a mystery around books and publishing that I
think you're alluding to, and I sometimes call it the
audacity factor. I think you have to like have the
like get over having the audacity, like who am I
to tell this story? Who am I to write this book?
And if you can get over that hump, the story
is there.
Allison King (47:15):
Yeah. Yeah, I think I asked a little bit what
I was getting at with that, Like, we're just made
out of stories, Like if you tell yourself that you're
a story of Oh, I am a writer and I'm
going to write this and then it will happen. And
I think it's mostly just about putting words on the
page and maybe if a Google doc doesn't work, then
handwrite it or get out a good pencil and start
writing it. The important thing is that, like those words
(47:37):
aren't the final ones, and we'll just keep changing.
Danielle Robay (47:41):
Allison Adrian, thank you for all of the magic. This
was great.
Adrienne Young (47:47):
Thank you so much for having us.
Danielle Robay (47:52):
And if you want a little bit more from us,
come hang with us on socials. We're at Reese's Book
Club on Instagram serving up books, vibes and behind the
scene magic and I'm at Danielle Robe Roba y come
say hi and df me And if you want to
go nineties on us, call us. Okay, our phone line
is open, so call now at one five zero one
(48:14):
two nine one three three seven nine. That's one five
oh one two nine, one three three seven nine. Share
your literary hot takes, book recommendations, questions about the monthly
pick or let us know what you think about the
episode you just heard, and who knows, you might just
hear yourself in our next episode, So don't be shy,
(48:36):
give us a ring, and of course, make sure to
follow Bookmarked by Reese's book Club on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your shows until then,
see you in the next chapter. Bookmarked is a production
of Hello Sunshine and iHeart podcast. It's executive produced by
Reese Witherspoon and me Danielle Robe. Production is by Acast
(48:59):
Creative Studios. Our producers are Maddy Foley, Britney Martinez, Sarah Schleede,
and Darbi Masters. Our production assistant is Avery Loftis. Jenny
Kaplan and Emily Rudder are the executive producers for a
Cast Creative Studios. Maureene Polo and Reese Witherspoon are the
executive producers for Hello Sunshine. Olga Kaminwha, Kristin Perla, Kelly
(49:21):
Turner and Ashley Rappaport are associate producers for Reese's book Club.
Ali Perry and Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for
iHeart Podcasts, and Tim Palazola is our showrunner.
Bookmarked by Reese's book Club is presented by Apple Books.
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. I'm Danielle Robe
and this week we're talking to the adele of audio books.
What does that mean? I could give you my opinion,
but I think our guest, Julia Wayln, should be the
one to share.
Julia Whelan (00:19):
People have said to me is that my voice sounds trustworthy.
So this story may go in places you're not expecting,
but I know where we're going.
Danielle Robay (00:30):
You may recognize that voice. It's iconic because Julia has
narrated over seven hundred audio books in her career. She's
done all of Emily Henry's books, all of Taylor Jenkin
Reid's books, Kristin Hannah titles, and even the audiobook that
changed the literary game, Gone Girl, by Jillian Flynn, from
(00:51):
beach reads to psychological thrillers. She's delivered hit after hit
straight to your earbuds. But Julia isn't just the voice
behind the stories. She's also the author of one and
On August first, the film adaptation of her debut novel
My Oxford Year, officially dropped on Netflix, and later in
(01:12):
the episode if You've Ever Dreamed of becoming an author.
Stay tuned for an exclusive conversation with two powerhouse authors
from the Reese's Book Club Laid Up program. So, whether
you're here for plot prose or just to bask in
the vocal velvet of Julia.
Julia Whelan (01:29):
Waylen Danielle, I got you. Oh yeah, Let's turn the
page with Julia Whylen.
Danielle Robay (01:39):
Julia, Hello, welcome to the club.
Julia Whelan (01:42):
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Danielle Robay (01:44):
I'm freaking out hearing your voice in my headphones.
Julia Whelan (01:49):
Live extemporaneously.
Danielle Robay (01:51):
Oh man, I mean now I understand hearing you one
to one Why you're known as the adele of audiobook narrators.
Julia Whelan (02:00):
Apparently, yes, apparently, I'm not.
Danielle Robay (02:02):
Going to start singing Rolling in the Deep unless you
beg me too, or even just ask nicely. But instead
I want to ask you what your go to power
ballad is.
Julia Whelan (02:11):
Oh, you know, I recently rediscovered that Selene Dion song
which I can't even remember now then, but you know,
there were Nights of Nus Pleasure, and I was like,
we did not give this enough credit when it first
came out. That music video is bonkers, and I just
I love it.
Danielle Robay (02:28):
But here's my question on that, because people call you
the Adele of narrators. And they don't say the Selene Dion,
they don't say the Beyonce, they don't say the Whitney Houston.
Why do they say Adele.
Julia Whelan (02:42):
I think it's the New Yorker's never ending quest for
alliterative quality. I really think that's what it came down to.
I mean, I will take it, don't get me wrong,
but the Adele of audiobooks just has a nice alliterative
quality to it.
Danielle Robay (02:58):
I have a different opinion. Can I share please? Okay?
I think that Adele has this boundless sort of universal appeal.
She defies genre, she can do a ballad, she has
pop hits. She could really sing the phone Book and
that's you.
Julia Whelan (03:14):
Oh my gosh. Okay, that's such a better answer. I'm
taking that now for you, and I can't say it
about myself, obviously, but thank you.
Danielle Robay (03:21):
But you'll allow me. I'm going to use the word
boundless so many times in this interview.
Julia Whelan (03:25):
Great.
Danielle Robay (03:26):
I remember hearing Oprah famously saying that she emulated Barbara
Walters when she was coming up and trying to learn
how to be a host or a journalist. And I've
also heard singers say that they grew up mimicking Celine
dionnor mimicking that like Christina aguilera goottiral like growl that
she has when you have a voice as memorable as yours.
(03:50):
Was there anyone that you grew up or emulated early on?
Julia Whelan (03:54):
Oh, that is such a good question. I don't think
I did. I grew up as a child actor, so
I've had theatrical vocal training since i was nine, and
I've been very much in touch with my own voice
for a very long time, and so I don't think
I was emulating anyone specifically. I definitely learned from a
lot of other great audiobook narrators as I was coming
(04:15):
up and trying to figure out how to do the job.
But no, I think I just kind of settled into
what my narrator voice was pretty early and just kept going.
Danielle Robay (04:25):
For a while. In feminist culture, there was this idea
that women were supposed to find their voice, and now
I think it's sort of turned into women harnessing their
voice using their voice. I'm interested in the fact that
you said you found it or had it very early on.
Did you recognize that or do you recognize it in hindsight?
Julia Whelan (04:46):
I think that being the overachieving type a woman that
I am and always have been. I'm also deeply riddled
with the impulse to be a people pleaser, as I
think a lot of us are, and so it took
me a long time to come out of again that
child actor mentality of just I'll be whatever you need
me to be. I can do anything. How can I
(05:08):
help you? You know, to just saying actually, this is
what I want to do, this is who I am,
and either it works for you or it doesn't, and
trying to use my voice, all versions of my voice,
to change the things that I want to change in
the different industries that I'm a part of, and to
(05:29):
just own who I am. And that's a process I
think for every woman, whether you're a public figure or.
Danielle Robay (05:35):
Not, it is. So I'm curious about the transition from
child actor to narrator. I read that you've now narrated
over six hundred books.
Julia Whelan (05:45):
It's actually seven hundred now, yeah, oh my god.
Danielle Robay (05:49):
Yeah, So what was the book that was the turning
point in your career?
Julia Whelan (05:54):
I would probably say, gone, girl. I mean that was
back in twenty twelve, and I think that just happened
to coincide with a lot of things that were going on,
like audiobooks were just beginning to boom. You know, the
number of people that tell me that was their first
audiobook period, not just of mine, but first audiobook is significant.
And I think when you have that kind of cultural
(06:15):
juggernaut meeting with this technology of being able to have
an audiobook in your pocket, it just that was really
the thing that I think, let me believe, oh, maybe
I this could actually be a career, not just a
kind of haphazard pickup job that I do a couple
of times a year, but I could actually do this.
Danielle Robay (06:35):
And when you say this is the thing, do you
mean the success of it or the pay Like.
Julia Whelan (06:40):
What do you mean that there was a first of all,
brought enough attention to me and to the fact that
this is what I was doing now that I started
getting more offers, and at the time especially that was
sort of the way the career worked, Like you didn't
set out to go do this. Everyone that I know
fell backward into it. You know, it was just an
(07:01):
industry of can you read, come join us? And that
book was definitely a turning point where I was able
to then have enough work coming in that I could
sustain myself doing this, but yeah, even then, and at minimums.
The way that audiobooks are paid, they're not paid very well,
(07:24):
and so you have to do if you're going to
do it full time, you've got to do like seventy
books a year to keep your head above water, which
is why I have the number I have, And that's
not even There's a lot of narrators I know that
are up to one thy, twelve hundred, fifteen hundred. That's
the kind of volume you need to do to make
it a living.
Danielle Robay (07:41):
Wait, seventy books a year. So a book like Gone Girl,
how many days are you in the studio?
Julia Whelan (07:46):
Well with that book, especially because it's dual narration and
I was doing half of it, I think my sections
were ten finished hours total, so that was I think
I spent two or three days in studio doing that book.
Danielle Robay (08:00):
But a book where you were the narrator for everything
would be like a week.
Julia Whelan (08:05):
Yeah, It very much depends on the length of the book,
the complexity of the book, but yeah, I do now
I limit myself to two finished hours a day in
the booth, just for my voice and my own mental health.
It's hard to be in here for a very long time.
So I will do a ten hour book in a
work week.
Danielle Robay (08:25):
I'm not great at math, But seventy books a year,
there's not seventy weeks in a year. So you guys
are really.
Julia Whelan (08:31):
Well, right. It depends on the size of the book.
It depends on how much of the book I'm doing,
and it also that doesn't count the prep that goes
into it. Right, So all of those books that you
record have to also be read ahead of time and prepped,
and so it's just a it was a massive amount
of work.
Danielle Robay (08:48):
Wait tell, I'm interested in the prep. What does that
look like?
Julia Whelan (08:52):
So when I get a manuscript, I do a prep
read where I'm not only trying to get the tone
of the piece and the author's voices, because that's a
huge component of it, whether it's first person or third person,
whether it's thriller, whether it's romance, what's the tone, But
I'm also keeping a word list of words that I
need to know how to pronounce. And I'm also keeping
(09:12):
a character list of any speaking characters and any vocal
traits that the author is giving them. And then I'm
kind of working out a constellation of who are the
major characters that are mostly interacting in a book, so
I can start figuring out how to differentiate their voices
for the listener. Once I've done the prep read, I
send the questions off to the producer, to the author,
I have a conversation if we need to uh so
(09:35):
that by the time I get in the booth, I'm
ready to just sit down, press record and do the performance.
Danielle Robay (09:43):
So hearing you share what the prep is like. First
of all, that's pretty rigorous and time consuming for each one.
But I can't imagine that there are other narrators who
don't have acting backgrounds. That it sounds like there's so
much acting that goes into that.
Julia Whelan (09:58):
I think that's true. I think a lot of us
obviously have an acting background, But I also know some
who came in through the journalism door, or they came
in through an academic door, where they just have a
way with words and they're good storytellers and they have
a sensitivity to authorial voice. But an acting background definitely helps.
(10:18):
Which is not to say that all actors are good
at this, because they're not. It's very like it's two
different skills, like the ability to memorize lines and create
one character and maybe if you're doing film or television,
having multiple takes to work that out is very different
from trying to get through one hundred pages a day
of playing all of the characters with really no memorization involved,
(10:41):
just reading the text as error free as possible so
you can be as efficient as possible. It's a very
different skill.
Danielle Robay (10:47):
So one of my favorite parts of this podcast is
the Reese's Book Club listeners are embedded into the community,
and so I get voice notes and dms every single
episode of the guest that we have. And so many
people had requested, Julia, whyaln oh from episode one? And
(11:09):
you really are the people's princess and.
Julia Whelan (11:15):
Oh, that's a sad state of affairs.
Danielle Robay (11:17):
No it's not. I was thinking about why, and it's
because you and you inhabit so many different characters, but
you make each one sound authentic and never forced. And
I'm really wondering what the secret sauce is to sounding
like the truest version of every voice you take on WOO.
Julia Whelan (11:37):
First of all, thank you so much. That's just really gratifying, because,
as you can tell, this is a very isolating job.
I'm here recording on my own and three months later
it hits people's audible accounts, and you know there's really
no feedback, so that's very sweet. You know, this is
such a simplistic it'll probably seem like a cop out answer,
but without getting into a craft lecture about how to
(11:59):
add it really is just coming from an actor's mentality
of finding the humanity in each character, not judging them,
just asking yourself the basic basic acting questions of what
does this character want, what is their motivation? What are
they most scared of? And if you can start from
(12:20):
that basis, you really it's less about the voice that
is kind of grafted on to that and more about
just what is fueling that portrayal. That's what I need
to know about the characters before I can do them justice.
Danielle Robay (12:35):
So you're asking yourself those three to four questions you shared,
and then you mentioned that you will sometimes write the
author and ask them questions. Do you find the questions
you ask the authors similar or are they different for
every book?
Julia Whelan (12:49):
Yeah? I think it depends on the book. I mean
it also depends on the author. When it's someone like
Emily Henry, for instance, I'll just text m and say, hey,
who is in your head when you were writing this?
You know, it's like, are we talking about a young
Harrison Ford here? Is that what we're talking about? So,
you know, it's just helpful to be able to have
that shorthand with an author, But sometimes it is a
larger conversation. I have this Ya fantasy series that I've
(13:11):
been doing for seven years. We actually just wrapped it
up with book five, And in that situation, I worked
very closely with the author to build out this fantasy
world and what the different accents would sound like for
these different races and ethnicities that she had created in
this world, and trying to find those differences, and then saying, hey,
(13:33):
where are you going with this? You know what, I
don't want to paint myself into any corners like what's
going to be happening in book three four? Each project
is very different.
Danielle Robay (13:44):
You mentioned Emily Henry. So many of the big female
writers want you. Emily Henry's one of them, but also
Taylor Jenkins read Kristin Hannah, Who the Women was one
of my favorite books last year? Why do you think
that is why?
Julia Whelan (14:02):
Yeah? I ask myself that every day part of it
is absolutely the just actor sensibility of knowing that I
am going to bring that lens to the performance, like
how am I doing right by the characters that they
have toiled over creating. But I think also a lot
(14:24):
of it, especially in the case of well, actually in
the three that you mentioned, and for those three women particularly,
they know me as a writer and they trust me
in that capacity as well. And I think that's another
part of this. Why is this job is just very
suited to me? Is Yes, there's the thirty years of
acting experience, but there's also the overpriced English and Creative
(14:47):
writing degree and the fact that I live and breathe
books and I am an editor and I have my
own publishing company, and like, I just take writing very
seriously and I understand maybe what their goal is, what
they're trying to accomplish. And I really perceive my role
as being the conduit and the translator for this very
(15:10):
first adaptation that's ever going to happen. You're never going
to get a truer adaptation of a book than the audiobook,
And so for me, it's like, how do I translate
the feeling of how I feel having read it and
my writer sensibilities to the listener.
Danielle Robay (15:25):
Is there a Julia Wayln's signature.
Julia Whelan (15:27):
I don't know. I'm so bad at this. I'm so
bad at like having any self awareness. I think something
that has come up before the people have said to
me is that my voice sounds trustworthy. So oh I
like that. Yeah. So I think there's a sense that, like,
you're in good hands. This story may go in places
(15:48):
you're not expecting, but I know where we're going, so
just trust me and I'll take you through.
Danielle Robay (15:54):
It, Julia, before we take a break. I love asking
our guests what they've bookmarked this week and be a
weird fact, a fun quote, something that you've saved on Instagram,
even something you've texted your best friend about. What have
you bookmarked?
Julia Whelan (16:09):
Andrea Gibson's poem love Letter from the Afterlife. They were
an incredible, incredible poet who wrote a lot about their
own dying process, and I have been thinking about it
a lot in relationship to my Oxford year recently, because
(16:31):
I think they just nail something so beautifully about what
it means to let go of this life and step
into the next one.
Danielle Robay (16:42):
May I ask you what they nail because I think
so many beautiful writers have spoken about grief and when
they passed away. That poem permeated the internet. It hit people.
What was it?
Julia Whelan (17:01):
I think it's hope, I really do. Everything feels so
incredibly dire right now. And that's why as we talk
about this journey for my Oxford year over fourteen years,
and how many different drafts and how many different versions.
And I was actually talking to Alison, the original writer,
about this the other day, and I said, we could
have never predicted that at this particular moment in time,
(17:23):
when the culture is subsumed by war and tenuousness and
feeling like things just aren't the way they should be,
we feel this impulse to return to the poets. And
it has just been really beautiful to watch people connect
with this story. I'm just looking at the first line
of their poem, my love, I was so wrong. Dying
(17:48):
is the opposite of leaving. That just reframes the entire
experience in such a helpful, hopeful way.
Danielle Robay (17:56):
Yes, it does. That's what I'm really attaching to right now.
So I know you said when you're reading, you're taking
so many notes. What do audiobook narrators pay attention to
(18:18):
that the average reader like me wouldn't. I'm a highlighter
and I dog he or I know people don't love.
Julia Whelan (18:25):
That, but live your life, Live your life, thank you.
I am taking note of any character information that is necessary.
And this is not just vocal trait but also biographical details.
You know, if someone is growing up in Boston but
to an Italian family, that's going to have a different
(18:45):
energy than someone who's growing up in Boston but to
you know, has their families been there since the Mayflower? Like,
it's just there's a I like to know anything the
author is giving me. And then with the word lists,
with the pronunciations, I don't take anything for granted. There
have been character names, you know, Tara, and I want
(19:09):
to know how the author wants that said. I just
will not make any assumptions at this point. I've been
burned too many times, right, So those are things that
I have when I do read something for fun for pleasure,
which doesn't unfortunately happen very often. But when I do,
it always takes me about fifty pages to turn off
my prep brain. Like it's hard for me to even
remember how to read without figuring out how to pronounce
(19:32):
things as I go.
Danielle Robay (19:33):
Yeah, has your process evolved over the years?
Julia Whelan (19:38):
It has? I mean, God, when I first started, God,
this is really like back in the Jurassic period when
I first started this job, but we had you know,
they would tend me printouts. They would send me the
printed out manuscript, and I was prepping off of actual pages,
so I would highlight characters before I realized that that
actually just slows me down because I'm translating like who
(19:59):
was Blue? Again? At this point, it's just very streamlined.
I do all my prep off the page. Do you
eat any dairy not on recording days? What do you
eat the night before? I can eat anything the night before.
I won't drink the night before. Just anything that dehydrates
is not good, especially because I live in the desert,
so I feel like I'm constantly fighting that battle, right,
(20:21):
But dairy on the day is really the culprit.
Danielle Robay (20:24):
Yeah? Or do you do throat code? Or what's your drink? Yeah?
Julia Whelan (20:27):
Oh I got throat code. I have a few different
types of teas that I switch out, but mainly it's
just usually this huge mason jar of water.
Danielle Robay (20:35):
You don't have an audio engineer, No, I do it
all myself.
Julia Whelan (20:39):
What Yeah? Yeah, you're a one man band, I am.
I mean I send off the files once I've recorded them,
so they get these raw butt edited files and then
they go in and listen, clean it up, and send
me back any corrections that I have to make. And
I do the corrections, and I send those off to
them and they layer them in and yeah.
Danielle Robay (21:02):
Wow, So now I understand what you mean that there
really is no feedback.
Julia Whelan (21:06):
There's no feedback, No, it is you.
Danielle Robay (21:09):
Yeah, okay, Well that brings me to my question about
sex scenes, because you.
Julia Whelan (21:14):
Record, that's that's a good segue to talking about being
by yourself. Well, you record a fair amount of romance
novel I do, I do? Is it more or less
embarrassing acting those out when you're in the booth alone
rather than having somebody there to me? Sex scenes are
just like in any other type of genre, you always
(21:37):
have the climactic scenes, you know, whether it's in fantasy,
it's like that's when the battle happens, or in a
thriller that's when the killer gets caught. So it's just
I'm looking at it always through that lens of like,
what is the intention of this scene? This is where
the first time we get to see these characters finally,
you know, come together. For lack of a better anyway,
(21:58):
I don't get weird about it, or it's not embarrassing,
or it's not hard to do at this point of
just been doing too many of them. But I have
recently done a few duets where you know, I am
working with other people at the same time, and even that,
even that's not really weird or sexy because there's just
so many other things going on. You know, you're listening
for any audio problems, or you're you're listening for your
(22:20):
making mistakes, you're going back that you don't ever really
like get into a flow. I don't know, it's the same.
It's equivalent to doing something like that on camera where
it's not sexy because you've just have so many other
considerations that you're worried about you're not able to let go.
Danielle Robay (22:34):
Yeah, what have been some of your favorite twists to narrate?
Julia Whelan (22:38):
Ooh, well, that turn in Gone Girl is legendary.
Danielle Robay (22:43):
Do you know how many authors is that I've interviewed
on this on this podcast have cited Gone Girl.
Julia Whelan (22:49):
I mean, it's very hard for me, as like a
lover the lover of history that I am, to say
that nothing had ever been done before, because it absolutely had,
but that feels like it had been done before, and
so it changed everything.
Danielle Robay (23:03):
Did you know it was special when you were recording it.
Julia Whelan (23:05):
Yes, That's the one book I've ever been able to
predict would be huge.
Danielle Robay (23:10):
Did you ever narrate books that you thought would be
huge and kind of flop?
Julia Whelan (23:13):
Yes, there have been many books that I've just thought
were brilliant or and then I just couldn't understand why
they didn't they didn't take off sometimes. I mean, I
think Beat Reads a perfect example too, where I actually
blurbed that book for m before I was narrating it.
I just as a writer. I was blurbing it for her,
and I told her I was like, I think this
is going to change everything for you. Like I just
(23:34):
had a very strong sense of like that was the
book that we all needed at the time that it
came out. It just felt perfectly suited to the moment
that it was coming out.
Danielle Robay (23:43):
In Well, Your Baby, Your Project, My Oxford Year just
dropped on Netflix. Yeah, I'm halfway through it right now,
and my mom and I are what.
Julia Whelan (23:53):
A good turning point? The halfway point.
Danielle Robay (23:56):
Is so I haven't hit I haven't hit the moment, Okay, okay,
but I will say a big congratulations is in order,
because everybody has been talking about the twist, which is
the moment that you sort of alluded to what went
into changing the end of the movie a bit rather
than keeping it authentic to the book.
Julia Whelan (24:18):
So to have this conversation, we have to actually go
back in time to the origin story of this book,
which is that it actually started as a screenplay by
the wonderful screenwriter Alison Burnett. And in the Hollywood development process,
I was actually hired as a writer, a screenwriter who
had gone to Oxford to come in and work on
some of the setting stuff in the screenplay to make
(24:40):
it as authentically Oxford as possible. And in that process
of rewrites, the producers and I got to know each other,
and they got to know my opinions about the story,
and we all just realized that there was like so
much here that it was perfectly suited for a book.
And so so I went off and started writing the
(25:02):
book and kind of reverse adapted the story and changed
quite a bit along the way. But that's why the
movie itself and the screenplay has always kind of been
on a separate development trajectory. And then the book is
the book and has been out for seven years and
what's absolutely hilarious is in watching people's reaction to the
(25:23):
ending in the original original version of the screenplay. In
Allison's original version, see this is just spoiler central, but
the character it ends very much the way that the
movie ends. Let me put it that way. But in
every other draft of the screenplay up to and the
one that I reverse adapted and up to and including
(25:44):
the shooting draft of the screenplay, it ends very much
like the book ends. And so it was in the
editing room which Corey and Sophia did a really wonderful
interview with Mariene Lee Lanker from Entertainment Weekly about why
they decided to change the ending, and so it's just
it's incredible that that decision kind of in post to
(26:06):
change the ending actually brought it back to the way
it originally ended in the very first version of the screenplay.
Danielle Robay (26:13):
I think that there's and I guess I only know
this from my own perspective, but the way I produce
or would produce a podcast so like something audible, is
different than how I would write something sometimes, and it's
different than how I would produce it for television. And
you've narrated so many audiobooks. I can imagine that there's
(26:35):
a difference in writing for audio versus writing for the page.
How much did narrating influence how you wrote this.
Julia Whelan (26:45):
At that point in my career, It really didn't. I
was writing it as a writer. I that was my
history with the project, both as a screenplay and in prose.
That was I wrote it as a novel first and foremost.
My second book, I had a little bit more consideration
to the idea of it in audio, especially because it
(27:06):
was about audiobook narrators. And my third book, Casanova LLC,
was written specifically for audio, like I actually only did
the ebook of that just because people were asking for it,
But I never intended for it to be read, so
it was done almost as like an eight hour play.
That's the way I feel about that, and I enjoy
(27:28):
both practices enormously. But I am first and foremost a writer.
I am a novelist. That's how I think about it.
I think mostly as how it's going to be read,
not how it's going to be listened to.
Danielle Robay (27:44):
Well, you narrated your own audiobook of this, I am
wondering if you ever considered having someone else do it.
Julia Whelan (27:50):
I actually wanted to have someone else do it. There was, Yeah,
there was a narrator named Catherine Kelgrin who was just perfect.
She was an icon, She was incredible, and I wanted
her to do it, and she unfortunately passed away, so
I was sort of left with I always feel like,
(28:11):
in certain ways I felt like I was doing a
bad Catherine Kelgrin impersonation, like I just wanted her voice
on it.
Danielle Robay (28:16):
I'm so sorry.
Julia Whelan (28:17):
Had she been around for this huge boom that has happened,
I think more people would have discovered. She was beloved
and she is still to this day. People listen to
her her audiobooks and then are devastated when they find
out she's no longer here. But God, I would have
loved to have she should have been here for this,
(28:38):
to watch this industry finally get the attention it deserves.
It's just deeply sad to me.
Danielle Robay (28:44):
Do you ever think about that in terms of your
own legacy? Because I actually didn't think about it until
you just shared that. But books are so eternal in
ways that movies sometimes aren't because technology changes film and
so you know, like we don't want to watch black
and white movies as much anymore.
Julia Whelan (29:03):
But audiobooks sustain such a good point. I notice from
the inside of it. I notice there are certain differences.
I notice that there have been changes in performance, the
types of the way we perform audio books, the depth
and breadth of the talent that now do it, and
the different voices that exist in it. And it's just
(29:25):
become such an incredibly rich storytelling medium that you're so right,
Like people return to their comfort audio books the way
I will watch When Harry Met Sally, like whenever it's
on TV, that's just the rule, Like I have to
stop and watch the whole thing. And there are people
that feel that way about audiobooks. Why is it When
Harry Met Sally? Because it's the perfect movie.
Danielle Robay (29:48):
It is really perfect. So you've been actually very outspoken
about the audiobook industry as a whole, especially the way
narrators and voice actors are compensated. Yes, I actually did
(30:12):
not realize.
Julia Whelan (30:13):
Most people don't. Most people don't, But.
Danielle Robay (30:16):
Hearing how you prep I now understand why you've become
an activist in the space. What have people like me
and others not realized about what needs to change about
this industry.
Julia Whelan (30:29):
So the big elephant in the room is that narrators
don't get royalties, and the rest of publishing functions on
a royalty model. And also as does Hollywood as a
union actor, like I said, who's been working since I
was nine, I get residuals on Lifetime movies I did
twenty years ago. But audiobooks, of which I have seven
hundred out there in the world, I see nothing for.
(30:52):
And this would be one thing if the upfront payment,
if the buyouts were significant, but they're not. And the
main thing that I keep going back to and why
I will never shut up about this until it changes,
is because, as you said, audiobooks are now a part
of media at large. They have grown, They've exploded so much.
(31:14):
This is a multi billion dollar industry with double digit
growth year over year. And I know, as a traditionally
published author myself, how hard it is for authors to
have discoverability. How do people find your books, you know,
in this oversaturated media market. And one of the answers
to that, and a big part of it is your
audiobook narrator who is narrating your book, Because listeners follow
(31:38):
narrators very often, and so to be in a position
where I'm I'm helping people find the books. That is
benefiting the author, it's benefiting the publisher, and it won't
benefit me, especially at a time when we are kind
of under attack by synthetic voice and AI coming into
the market. I don't I can see the future. In
(31:59):
the future is you either have celebrities narrating audio books
or robots narrating audiobooks. And yet all of the books
I've recorded over the last fifteen years are still out there,
They're still being sold, people are still enjoying them because
they're antiques. At this point, it's like, oh, real human
voice by real professional narrators, and I'm not getting anything
(32:20):
for that. Yeah, that's a fundamental problem that I have.
I decided I devoted the last few years of my
life to trying to fix. And it's a worthy fight.
Danielle Robay (32:33):
Have you gotten anywhere.
Julia Whelan (32:34):
I had to start my own audio publishing company. I
couldn't get the audio publishers as they exist now, you know,
the corporate structures to change this, you know, And I
just realized that I can't. I just can't hear anymore.
Allison King (32:49):
You know.
Julia Whelan (32:49):
Well, it's just not done. That's not the way we
do things. Well. We could. Systems are built by people.
We can revise them. So I'm doing it now so
that no one can say, well, no one else does that,
that's not the way it's done. Well, I'm doing it.
Danielle Robay (33:04):
The name of your company is Audiobraary. Yes, yeah, which
is very cute. I like that.
Julia Whelan (33:09):
Thank you.
Danielle Robay (33:10):
If you can get into the weeds, I know it's hard.
What makes it stand apart from the rest of the industry.
Julia Whelan (33:16):
Yeah, So Audiobraray is two things. We're an audio publisher,
so we license audio rights from authors or presses with books,
and we create audio versions and you can get them anywhere.
We are also a direct to consumer retail channel. So
when you buy directly through audiobreary, the author and the
narrator who is getting a royalty benefits greatly because there's
(33:39):
not a retail shop taking a large percentage off the top, which,
by the way, in audio it's so much larger than
in any other digital product. I mean we are talking
audible can take anywhere between fifty and seventy five percent
off the top of audio, so even what the author
and the publishers are left with is so small. So
(34:00):
we do a direct consumer model as well, and when
you buy directly through audiobreray, you can get bonus material.
We always do interviews with the author with the narrators,
and we also have a rental model, so you can
rent our projects. And now we're starting to partner with
We're opening the platform up to other people who have
existing audio who want to treat their narrators better and
(34:20):
want to be on our shelves. We're just starting to
open that up. But this has been this has been
a labor of love. I'd have no entrepreneurial spirit. I
really want that to be clear. I am doing this
out of righteous rage and I would love to just
be narrating and writing, but I just can't. I could
not let this go unfixed any longer. So that's what
(34:43):
I'm doing. And we've been up and running for about
a year and a half now and we have I
don't know, fifteen projects or something of our own. And
then not to mention the books that we are also
adding to our shelves. But it's a curated collection, and
it's just you know that if you come to audio
Berri to be human, written, human narrated, and the money
(35:03):
is going directly into the pockets of the people who
actually created the stuff.
Danielle Robay (35:08):
It sounds like it would be really important for some
big authors to do this through audio.
Julia Whelan (35:13):
Rary. Yes, I mean, the part of the problem is
that at this point in the way publishing works, if
you sell to a traditional publisher, you will not be
able to retain your audio rights. They won't carve them
out anymore. They used to, but they know how valuable
they are now, so they don't. So we deal with
a lot of backlist, and we deal with a lot
of original audio projects, and also people who just decide
(35:38):
they're done with this system and they want to try
something new. So and I still work for traditional publishers,
and I have wonderful relationships with them, and I just
love I love this industry so much that I want
to try to find a way to make it sustainable
for the future, because I can't see a version where
(36:03):
people are paid appropriately in what is coming down the pike.
Danielle Robay (36:07):
I mean, it sounds like, I know you're not a complainer,
but it sounds like it's it's almost untenable to record
seventy books a year.
Julia Whelan (36:16):
This is the other thing is like to exactly to
that point as I watch, especially as I just turned
forty one, and even I can't do the volume I
used to do, And I look at the narrators who
are now getting into their sixties and seventies, and it's like,
you should not have to be doing this, Like you
should be able to make passive income the way everyone
(36:36):
else is off of the products that you helped create.
Danielle Robay (36:41):
You mentioned human a few times. How can you, an expert,
tell the difference between an AI voice and a human voice?
Julia Whelan (36:50):
I think it happens over duration. So some of these
voices are actually very impressive, and they've gotten a lot better,
but they're good for like thirty seconds or forty five
seconds when you're listening to an eleven hour audiobook. The
repetitiveness and the kind of redundancy is where you can
really tell. Now that said, I'm not willing to bet
(37:12):
the farm that they're never going to get there. I
think they will. I personally think the technology is going
to get so good that you won't be able to
tell the difference. But the entire point of what I'm
trying to do is, yeah, but what if you know
the difference? Is that going to change the way you purchase?
Where will you put your support? You want books to
be able to be available and accessible to people, and
(37:33):
if that means a synthetic voice narration for certain titles.
I understand that as long as the people have been
compensated and consented to having their voices cloned. But for
most people, you want if a human wrote the thing.
I want a human interpreting my words. I just do. Yeah.
Danielle Robay (37:54):
I'm going to switch the energy up a little bit
because we do something called speed read. We're going to
put sixty seconds on the clock and we're going to
see just how many rapid fire literary questions you can
get through. Lord, okay, okay, three two one. I saw
on your Instagram bio that you identify as the voice
inside your head. Who is the voice inside of Julia
(38:17):
Wayland's head.
Julia Whelan (38:18):
It's an authorial voice and it's George Elliott. And it
was a line I actually wrote into my Oxford year saying,
She's the voice of God in my head.
Danielle Robay (38:25):
What is one literary trope you would ban forever?
Julia Whelan (38:28):
I really don't enjoy enemies to lovers for the most part,
when the banter is mean rivals to lovers, I can
do enemies to lovers.
Danielle Robay (38:34):
I can't great distinction than what's one that you'll defend
with your life?
Julia Whelan (38:38):
Sex lessons or kissing lessons whatever you want to call it.
I love that best.
Danielle Robay (38:44):
What's a book that you'd wish you'd narrated?
Julia Whelan (38:47):
Ooh, if Salinger's estate ever opens up, his uvra, I
want to do Franny and Zoe. They have to let
me do that one.
Danielle Robay (38:55):
What's your favorite audiobook to recommend?
Julia Whelan (38:57):
Daisy Jones and the Six because I think it's a
perfect gateway audiobook.
Danielle Robay (39:00):
Okay, one accent? You'd love to never do again?
Julia Whelan (39:03):
I really can't, for the life of me do Australian,
so I would like that to go away.
Danielle Robay (39:07):
What's a book that you wish you could hear again
for the first time?
Julia Whelan (39:11):
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter narrated by Eduardo Ballerini.
Danielle Robay (39:15):
Which fictional character do you secretly think you're most like?
Julia Whelan (39:19):
It's actually Jamie from my Oxford Year.
Danielle Robay (39:21):
Do you ever peek at the last page? First?
Julia Whelan (39:23):
No, not a psychopath.
Danielle Robay (39:26):
Would you narrate your memoir audiobook?
Julia Whelan (39:29):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, if I ever. I'm never writing a memoir,
but yeah, I would have to narrate it.
Danielle Robay (39:33):
You have ten minutes in a bookstore. Which section are
you heading to?
Julia Whelan (39:37):
First? Oh? God, nineteenth century history?
Danielle Robay (39:39):
Whoa Julia?
Julia Whelan (39:41):
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I had no idea
you were a nerd. I'm a sixty year old dad.
I'm so sorry.
Danielle Robay (39:49):
Why nineteenth century because.
Julia Whelan (39:51):
That's my period. That's just what I've always loved. Cool
the Victorians.
Danielle Robay (39:55):
I love that.
Julia Whelan (39:57):
Yeah.
Danielle Robay (39:58):
Uh, Julia, You're such a dynamic person. Thank you for this.
Julia Whelan (40:03):
There was a question coming. I was like, no, I was.
Danielle Robay (40:06):
Just thinking, like, I understand why you're able to tap
into so many characters because you are so tapped into yourself.
Julia Whelan (40:17):
Oh, thank you. Oh my gosh, Wow, what a compliment.
Thank you. I really appreciate that, and this was delightful.
Danielle Robay (40:28):
Before we go, I want to introduce a new segment
to the Club now. As you know, I've been a
fan of Reese's Book Club for years as a reader,
but Reese's Book Club also fosters community among writers. Each year,
they provide five emerging writers with an all expenses paid
writing retreat, a three month mentorship with a published author,
(40:50):
and marketing support. It's called lid Up, and for a
few of these incredible writers, their novels have actually debuted
as Reese's book Club picks.
Life changing.
I had the opportunity to sit down with one of
the LitUp writers Alison King and her mentor Adrian Young.
Allison King (41:08):
Now.
Danielle Robay (41:08):
Allison's novel The Phoenix Pencil Company was the Reese's book
Club pick for June, and we had an exclusive conversation
about storytelling, mentorship, and the power of the pen And
I just really want to talk about the magic between
the two of you, not just in what you write,
but in also how you created this story together. What's
(41:30):
something unexpected or beautiful that happened during this process, Allison?
Allison King (41:35):
Oh, because I haven't had any formal writing training, really,
a lot of it has been by instinct. But then
I felt like Adrian was able to articulate to me
why things were working. So it wasn't just like this
doesn't feel like it's working, but also like this is
really working because of X, Y and Z. So I
(41:57):
remember the specific thing was, I think the book starts
with a picture of two women, and then at the
very end it also ends with a picture of two women,
and I remember Adrian telling me like, oh, I really
hope they like take a picture together at this scene
in the whole moment, Yeah exactly, And I had like
done that by instinct, not really thinking about it or
like even questioning it really, but then being able to
(42:19):
hear Adrian tell me why that worked. I feel like
leveled up my writing and in a way that I
wasn't expecting at all.
Danielle Robay (42:27):
So part of the lit Up Fellowship is a writing retreat.
I kind of imagine you, guys, somewhere under the Tuscan Sun,
snacking on Parmesan Chris drinking rose or in my alternate
reality or romantic see, I imagine you in a cozy
wood cabin sipping something warm, journaling in a linen robe,
with someone in the background roasting sweet potatoes. I really
(42:51):
thought about this, but I also think I might have
seen that in a movie one time. So I'm wondering
what actually happens at a writer's retreat.
Allison King (43:01):
Honestly, I don't think it was too different from what
you described, Like it was quite fancy.
Julia Whelan (43:06):
Wow.
Allison King (43:07):
Well, we were in Nashville, and we were in a
fancy hotel, and I guess we were mostly in the
hotel the whole time, where we had some a conference
room or too, and we had the like the really
fancy room at the top as well, just to like
have meetings in the whole littlep cohort. So there were
five of us, and then our mentors as well, and
then also a team from We Need Diverse Books and
(43:28):
matt Cap Retreats who were running workshops for us, and
we just had like workshops or writing time in the morning,
and then we would meet with our mentors to talk
about what was going on, and we had lunch together,
and I remember the lunches were really fun in a
way of being able to hear all the mentors talk
to each other about the writing business and publishing industry.
Adrienne Young (43:51):
It was a different kind of writing retreat because it
was very like structured and they were doing workshops and things,
but then we were all so meeting and having meals together.
And what I really loved about it was that even
among the mentors, it was all writers at different stages
(44:11):
of their career and different levels of experience, and so
it was like a chance for me to also be
talking and getting wisdom from writers who are like putting
out like their twenty fifth book or whatever.
Danielle Robay (44:25):
And I can imagine the way you're describing this retreat
is like being around writers, whether it's the mentees or mentors,
and you're all in this very specific position. It must
have just felt really nice to feel seen and like
you're in this group of people who understand you. Yeah,
I mean I felt like that.
Adrienne Young (44:43):
I think also, what would have been really cool for
me if I had had that opportunity before I was published.
Julia Whelan (44:49):
Publishing is really hard.
Adrienne Young (44:50):
It takes a lot of work to actually get a
career going. But also the people who do it are
just normal, regular people, and in that way, it's like
very accessible. You know. I think that it's a matter
of kind of like timing and a little luck, you know,
in how long you can hang in there to try
(45:10):
to break in.
Danielle Robay (45:11):
Why did you say yes to being a mentor in
this space to begin with?
Adrienne Young (45:16):
Well, I very much believe in what the lit up
program is trying to achieve. You know, they are achieving.
And I am a big fan of Reese's Book Club
because my book was picked for Reese's Book Club in
the first year of the pandemic, you know, when it
could have just been totally buried like so many.
Danielle Robay (45:39):
Good books were.
Adrienne Young (45:41):
And I really feel like having that opportunity and exposure
from Reese's Book Club was.
Julia Whelan (45:47):
Vital for that series.
Adrienne Young (45:49):
And when there is an opportunity to kind of give
back and help somebody else traverse that part a little
bit is really valuable.
Julia Whelan (45:58):
But yeah, it's just.
Adrienne Young (46:00):
A very cool program, very cool initiative, and very needed
and timely.
Danielle Robay (46:05):
I think what is both of your best advice for
anyone sitting at home staring at a blank Google doc
wondering if they have a story worth telling?
Julia Whelan (46:15):
Just that you do.
Adrienne Young (46:16):
I think like we all do, right, And the craft
of writing is something that you really have to work
on and learn over time. But having a story is
something that everyone has, you know, and it's not necessarily
even autobiographical, but just your perspective, your lens like on
(46:38):
the world, and anyone who has like the hunger to
write fiction, especially.
Julia Whelan (46:46):
You can do it.
Adrienne Young (46:47):
You can learn how to do it. And even how
Alison was saying, like she's doing so much from instinct, right,
and I think a lot of people have those instincts.
Danielle Robay (46:57):
Yeah, there's a mystery around books and publishing that I
think you're alluding to, and I sometimes call it the
audacity factor. I think you have to like have the
like get over having the audacity, like who am I
to tell this story? Who am I to write this book?
And if you can get over that hump, the story
is there.
Allison King (47:15):
Yeah. Yeah, I think I asked a little bit what
I was getting at with that, Like, we're just made
out of stories, Like if you tell yourself that you're
a story of Oh, I am a writer and I'm
going to write this and then it will happen. And
I think it's mostly just about putting words on the
page and maybe if a Google doc doesn't work, then
handwrite it or get out a good pencil and start
writing it. The important thing is that, like those words
(47:37):
aren't the final ones, and we'll just keep changing.
Danielle Robay (47:41):
Allison Adrian, thank you for all of the magic. This
was great.
Adrienne Young (47:47):
Thank you so much for having us.
Danielle Robay (47:52):
And if you want a little bit more from us,
come hang with us on socials. We're at Reese's Book
Club on Instagram serving up books, vibes and behind the
scene magic and I'm at Danielle Robe Roba y come
say hi and df me And if you want to
go nineties on us, call us. Okay, our phone line
is open, so call now at one five zero one
(48:14):
two nine one three three seven nine. That's one five
oh one two nine, one three three seven nine. Share
your literary hot takes, book recommendations, questions about the monthly
pick or let us know what you think about the
episode you just heard, and who knows, you might just
hear yourself in our next episode, So don't be shy,
(48:36):
give us a ring, and of course, make sure to
follow Bookmarked by Reese's book Club on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your shows until then,
see you in the next chapter. Bookmarked is a production
of Hello Sunshine and iHeart podcast. It's executive produced by
Reese Witherspoon and me Danielle Robe. Production is by Acast
(48:59):
Creative Studios. Our producers are Maddy Foley, Britney Martinez, Sarah Schleede,
and Darbi Masters. Our production assistant is Avery Loftis. Jenny
Kaplan and Emily Rudder are the executive producers for a
Cast Creative Studios. Maureene Polo and Reese Witherspoon are the
executive producers for Hello Sunshine. Olga Kaminwha, Kristin Perla, Kelly
(49:21):
Turner and Ashley Rappaport are associate producers for Reese's book Club.
Ali Perry and Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for
iHeart Podcasts, and Tim Palazola is our showrunner.
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