March 5, 2026 • 43 mins
What does it take to write a powerful first draft—and how is AI changing the way writers create? ✍️ In this conversation, Jade Dee and Wilnona Marie of And I Thought Ladies sit down with award-winning playwright and writing coach Tanya Shaffer to talk about breaking through writer’s block, building authentic characters, and the craft of playwriting. Tanya shares insights from her experience with productions across the U.S. and Canada, along with practical advice for writers learning to silence the inner critic and get their stories onto the page. The discussion also explores how modern tools like AI fit into the creative process while preserving a writer’s unique voice. Watch the full interview and get inspired to start (or finish) your next story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the writers now. And I thought, Ladies,
this is what happens when you have four podcasts. You
start the podcast and you're like, you know, this is
the one. This is gonna be the and I thought, ladies,
And then the next thing, you know, you're like, with
the writer's glass is such a good one for this one.
And then I was gonna do Ladies tales because she
acts as well. And then I was like, yes, I
(00:22):
could put it on all three, but then I feel
like that's a waste of space because I gotta pay
for all. You know what, before I went into the
whole nerd thing about podcasting, I just recognized no one
cares but me, and since it's me and I'm a narcissist.
Back to what I was saying, I will know no
by the way, and a high five to me for
(00:43):
remember to introduce myself with a small dance. Ooh, it
is freaking soulful looking today goes. I almost wanted to continue,
just be like, yeah, yeah, okay, I'm going to the
club this weekend, y'all. That's exactly what I'm doing. Do
some soulful little this moving fall it dancing in my
chair I'm like on the floor. The bottom half of
me doesn't agree. It does not agree with the soulful ideas.
(01:06):
Any social ideas is like we firmly reject anyway. I
wrote books. Go figure, you would think I was an
orator or an auctioneer with as fast as I'm speaking.
But I wrote books and there and I thought divorce
was bad, and I thought being grown up with ez
if only I were me a memory in verse foreign Coffees,
Widdow's Web and Widow's Debt and those six books. If
you've been with us for a while, you know exactly
(01:26):
how the spiel goes saved with me. Now those six
books wherever audiobooks can be found, I'm giving you a
moment to catch up. Yep, there's your lag time. And
if you you can find out the rest of the
book a boy, the books that we've written written blah
blah blah blah. See, this is what happens when I
try to have audience participation. A narcissist doesn't share their airtime,
(01:47):
messes the whole groove of If you'd like to find
out about the rest of the books that we've written,
that'd be thirteen more books. Equally nineteen books. You can
go to www dot and I thought ladies dot com.
If you're wondering why I look like this today is
because jet lag is real and I just came back
from York. But that's not important at all. You're not
(02:08):
here to hear about me. That's the important thing. You're
here to hear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests. Would
you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Of course? Hello everyone. My name is Bonnie Turpin and
I am an actress an audiobook narrator. I'm also the
founder of Sola Food co Op, an emerging cooperative grocery
store in South Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Hey, okay, so I was gonna start off with what
you know? I should actually start off with how did
you start being an actress? And no, I heard food?
So what's a food co op? How did you get started?
And what's in the food co op? Because I might
need to buy some food?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Oh okay, So a food co op is a consumer
cooperative generally, so there's all different kinds of co ops.
Co Ops are businesses that are owned by the people
who use them, and it can be as few as
two people or unlimited In the case of our store,
(03:17):
which is a consumer cooperative, we will have unlimited amount
of owners. Basically, in a nutshell, in a food co op,
what happens is when you shop at the co op
as a member, which is really an owner. When you're
an owner of the co op, you receive a share
(03:38):
of the profits according to how much you shop at
the store, so you're a part owner. There's generally a
small investment to become an owner. In our store, it's
two hundred dollars per household, so a family can join
the co op for two hundred dollars. And the thing is,
(03:58):
though the co op development, we have to start getting
owners before we actually have the store. So we're in
that little tricky spot where we're selling something that isn't
You can't go shop there yet, you know, if there's
stores not there yet. But we already have seven hundred
(04:20):
and seven households that have invested in the co op
and we're in the site selection phase of our development
where we are looking at sites to actually build out
our store, and I think we found one. It's just
also very chicken and egg with this. It's like, now
that we've found the site, now we really need to
(04:40):
capitalize because we can't really capitalize before we find the site,
you know. So we have a small amount of member
equity that we've amassed, which is what people pay to
join the co op. Part of that we've been using
for operations, you know. But yeah, we're in this little
chicken egg moment where we need to find money to
(05:03):
secure this wonderful site that we found in which to
open our store. But it's been a really long, woof
long journey. And you know, years ago before I started this,
which was twenty eleven before I started this, if someone
(05:24):
had said to me, oh, yeah, you're going to start
a cooperative grocery store, and.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I would have sent you out your mind. I would
have said, what what makes you think that I, Bonnie Durpin,
the actress, would do something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And I I don't know how I got tapped. I
really don't know. That's why I think that it's just
divine intervention. Because I was going about my merry way
pursuing my acting career and had some successes and saved
some money, was able to buy a home in Los Angeles, right,
(06:08):
so that is a landmark.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
That's a mile alone.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Bought my home in South Los Angeles. Actually, unbeknownst to me,
it was only a few blocks away from where one
of my great aunts used to live. And I think that,
you know, I think things like that draw you to places.
It's like there's an invisible connection that you feel. So
I bought this house, and then I realized that I
(06:36):
was still going back to my old neighborhood to buy
groceries because we only buy organic food and it wasn't here.
And during the time that I've lived here, which has
been since twenty ten, three of our major grocery store
chains have closed in the neighborhood. So we have we
(07:00):
have even we were already a food desert, and now
it's worse. The only uptick is that some of the store, well,
the one grocery store that still exists in my neighborhood
has begun carrying some organics. Not enough for me to
(07:21):
shop there on a regular basis, but there are some,
you know, So I do have a hope of maybe
I can find it here without having to drive for
half an hour, you know. But generally the stores like
Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Sprouts, they're on the outer edges
(07:43):
of my neighborhood. I have to either go towards the
University USC where they have a Trader Joe's, or I
have to go west to Culver City, or I have
to go north to where I used to live in
Hollywood to visit those stores. So we're trying to bring
(08:04):
a store to the hood that's owned by us, so
nobody can decide, you know, oh, we don't want to
pay hazard, pay to our workers and leave, which is
why Ralph's, which is also Kroger's. I don't know if
you have Ralphs and Merlin, but I know y'all have Safeway,
But in Giant, do you still have Giant? Thankfully?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
We call it getting robbed with your eyes open?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Okay, yeah. And that's the thing is some of these stores,
they come into the hood and they will open a
store that's like a third tier grocery store, not their
top level. You go into another neighborhood and see the
same store and be like, whoa, this store's so nice
with the wood floors and everything and whoo, and it
(08:51):
doesn't smell like rotting meat, you know. But in our neighborhoods,
they tend to do less, or they tend to sell
their surplus, you know, what they what didn't move at
some other store, what they had a lot of, you know.
So we want to bring a full service grocery store
that that specializes in natural and organic foods. We'll have
(09:14):
some conventional foods as well, they just won't be genetically
modified or have high fruittose corn syrup or whatever. We
call those clean conventional foods. So we don't want it
to be unrecognizable for people who aren't used to buying
organic food. But we want you to have those options,
(09:35):
and we want that to be available to our community.
So that's the work behind so La Food co Ops
out La Food co Op. It's our website is www
dot s o l A Food co Op dot com,
Solafood co Op dot com.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
So we for the for though, the other couple hundred
or thousand people to buy in so that we can
have this.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Organic absolutely, you know, we'd like to have at least
one thousand to twelve hundred households when we open doors
on the store. But I'm confident that once we announce
the site, there will be a huge uptick in membership.
These people who have already joined, those are the faithful,
(10:29):
Those are the people who like I believe it. I
can see the vision. I'm going to put my money
down now. But there's a lot of people who won't
do that until they see the store exactly and there,
or they see that the store is being built, you know,
so it is coming, it is coming.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Nice. I'm only a huge fan of organic foods, not boy,
It's just that my body only really likes to eat
organic foods, which music body is discerning very high, very
high food built.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Do you have any co ops in your area?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
No, In fact, when you're saying you only have one,
you only have one store. I definitely understand that, completely
understand that because we have one grocery store where I live. Wow,
I live on the edges, so I do have farms.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
What's your zip code?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
They're not gonna find you, Okay, I'm just gonna I
know the name of the city. I'm gonna put that.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
In so anyway, I'll tell you, like as soon as
I as soon as we stop recording, if you tell
you the zip.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Code, I have an app find a food co op.
I'm trying to find you a food co op in
your area.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Now there's a food co op and now where my
mama was born and raised, and we just drive down there.
But for the most part we live like a couple
miles away from some farms, so never terrible to find food.
And besides, I already drive to another state anyway to
(12:12):
get my food. I drive to Pennsylvania to go grocery shopping,
my big grocery shopping with all my I have my freezers. Yeah,
all of that is uh. I drive to Pennsylvania, go
straight to the farm, get it from there, put it
in my freezer.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, it's annoying. My body is very annoying about the
food it eats. But now I think I should probably
focus on your audio book career because I don't play
on the show in any way, shape or form. I
was trying to I was trying to segue from food
to audio book, and I went, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I think I have one.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
You know, love to eat snack food while doing audio books.
Can you tell me about how you got into audiobooks?
That's as good as a second.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Don't get to eat anything while recording an audio book.
You can eat at all you want while listening.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, oh, you don't get to just stop and have
a quick snack in some.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Water and then start stop being the operative word. You
would have to stop. You can't be like damn man.
She went down to the.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I'm not gonna lie. I tried. I tried recording because
sometimes people ask me to do a chapter. Make sure
I'll do a chapter. I tried to do it by
chewing bubble gum. It doesn't it sounded interesting?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Mm hmmm, not neless. That's the character choice, right right,
I did. I don't think that the reviews are out
on it yet. Sometimes I take a risk with the
character and sometimes they hate it. But uh, I had
a book recently that takes place largely in an assisted
(13:56):
living or a co living place for elders, and one
woman had you know, she had the oxygen on.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And I made her talk like like she was gasping
for air a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So we'll see how that goes over. She wasn't the
main character, so hopefully it wasn't too annoying. But I
thought she was very I thought it was very endearing.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Okay, this brings me to the question. I was going
to ask, like fifth down on my list, but I'm
asking now, So when you see characters and books, how
do you develop them like in your mind.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Sometimes it's really just off the cuff, is like what
comes to me in that moment. Sometimes if it's a
major character in the book, I might think of a
person I know or have known in my life that
I want them to sound like. So, you know, uh,
(14:58):
And there's some favorite people. I don't know they'll ever
hear this, but like my stepmother's voice is one she
has to me an elegant sort of education. You know,
she's got a nice, classy lady voice. And there's some
I just did a book recently, and I had an
(15:20):
old friend of my mother's that I remember from when
I was a child, you know, Mallie Bryce, And she
used to say she was from Georgia, and she said, Bonnie, listen, Bonnie,
I declare you know it things like she was. She
was also an elegant lady, but very southern different, you know,
(15:42):
so things. So sometimes I do that. Sometimes I use
the sound of an actual person or sometimes you know
it's a kid, and so you have to go into
the kid area of your voice to make it sound
younger and and the kids are all it's sort of
usually more excited and faster and you know, higher and
(16:05):
faster because their life is new. They're not jaded yet
like you and I quite as exciting every minute. So
uh yeah, and then you know, and then sometimes it's
informed by whatever's in the script.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I had an audition for a play recently. They didn't
have the sense to hire me. But one of the
roles was an ensemble cast and I would have played
like three four different roles, and one of the roles
was an extinct species, the golden toad. And I asked
(16:47):
the casting director, I said, what are you looking for
with this toad character? How am I supposed to sound
like get a rivet? I mean, throw some rivets in?
Or what? How do I do this? And what I
landed on was, you know, this toad was only found
in one special place in Costa Rica, and so and
(17:11):
they talked about if she talked about or he talked
about how they went extinct and how they used to
have these mating frenzies every rainy season they would all
come out of their burrows and get pumping or get pumped,
and that was like one of the lines. And so
I get I thought of her as this sort of
(17:32):
really sort of sexy Costa Rican. I don't. I've never
been to Costa Rica, but I tried to give her
sort of Spanish sound and she was sort of, you know,
hot in my mind.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
The Golden Toad.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
The sad thing though, I did a little research on it.
With the Golden Toad, only the males were golden. The
female were like red, black and green.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Which is also interesting. They needed a little help. Yeah,
shiny personalities, that's what they need. Shiny personalities. Okay, So,
like I love that you get informed first of all
by by people in your life. That's gotta be. That's
gonna make every character like so dear, and then like
you get to interpret and twist on. Oh, it's gotta
(18:27):
because you're.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Not always people from my life. Sometimes they're just you know,
there's five dudes in this book, and they can't all
have a deep voice, so because that'll wear you out
trying to get down there all the time. You can't
always get down there, but you know, somebody, somebody's got
to have an annoying dude voice like this.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You know, I have interviewed quite a few narrators this,
I have to admit, this is very fun, is so fun.
You have bought so many characters to life, like just
like in those few minutes.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Oh my god, thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I'm almost gonna like, I'm almost tempted to ask you
later about like what's your finish what's your rate for
finished hour? I know I'm not gonna be my book
sales aren't gonna be able to take care of it.
But you know, I don't think my rate is high enough.
But it's hard to find out, you know. It's like,
you know, it's kind.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Of it seems kind of rude to me to ask
another narrator, what is your rate? You know I should
be getting more than you, you know, so I rely
on sometimes the people that do the contracts, like am
I charging enough? Like once somebody pulled my coat once
(19:44):
and said you're Bonnie, you're not charging enough. And I
had to say, well how much more? This much more?
This one? They were like this one. Then they were like,
that's more like it. So now I'm ready to raise that. Yes,
you thought maybe I should wait for another award, and
then I could say, no, my.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Rate is okay, which rings meeg hey, y'all, I mean
I'm doing two segues, two segues and one show. It's
looking getting good, which brings me to the Audio Awards.
So what did you air?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I didn't go. I was not nominated this year.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
But you were nominated before.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Oh yeah, a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I want to one before.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And I'm kicking myself that I didn't go this year.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
You know why, hmmm, did you win?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I didn't. I wasn't nominated. That's why I didn't go, right.
Whoopy Goldberg was nominated and she won, and she has
said on the view that I am one of her
favorite narrators, and I've narrated three of her children's books.
(20:59):
And if I had, you know, not been so self
absorbed and noticed that she was nominated, she could have.
I could have asked to present her award and they
would have let me.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Oh my god that I.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Didn't get to meet Whoopee because because when the nominations
came out, I just like, where's Bonnie Turva Monny? I
just looked for my name and I didn't look at
everybody else's nomination.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Oh my goodness, that is hilarious. No. I saw that
she was nominated this year, and I was like, Ooh,
that's gotta be fun for everybody going.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
And she won.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Oh there's one like amazingly cool nominated and you're like, oh,
I should go, and I'm an author, and I still
think about buying tickets to go.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Oh you should go.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I should. I should definitely go and been surprised.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
You know, it's gotten really big and I'm a little
bit sad about that because it used to be this
little boutique, wonderful event for us in this little boutique
niche industry, you know. Yeah, but now it's like everybody
in their mama comes and.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
No you did not. I did not say everybody and
their mama come. They do they do.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Last year when it was in La people, I was like,
I saw actors that I know from, like like my
voiceover agency because we used to like go to in
person auditions. We don't anymore. And I'm like, what are
you doing here? You doing audiobooks now? No, I just
thought i'd come. And you know, basically, so people wanted
(22:46):
wanted wanting to get involved in the industry more so,
and then they're also giving more and more awards to celebrities.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
So yeah, and I'm not gonna lie. It seems like
something fun to do. I mean, I love to get
dressed up and walk.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Over a carpet so yeah, I get I should buy
a ticket. Okay, So I have to ask for the
authors out there that the biggest thing that they always
asking is how do I start getting an audiobook?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
What do I think about? So from your perspective as
a narrator, what do you think authors need to think about?
Top three pieces of advice you would give an author
that's like, I need to get an audiobook.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I'm not an author. The author's path is not one
that I really know.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
What do you look for when you're selecting a project?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Unfortunately, it's not always so many projects that I'm selecting.
Often it's like do I have time, Yes, I'll do it,
you know, unless the you know it looks horrible or
something like. I mean, I rarely say no, but if
(24:02):
it's you know, really bad like or something that I
just don't want to I can't, you know, then I
might say no. But usually I need to make you know, money.
So if I have the time and it's within my
you know, the type of thing that I do, I
(24:23):
would not say no. There's a thing called ac X
whereby authors can find narrators willing to produce an audio
book for you. I do not do that because I'm
going to narrate the book and that's it. I'm not
(24:47):
going to prove read it. I'm not going to edit it.
I don't know how. I don't know how to edit
an audio book. You need an editor for that, you know,
and then you know and then how it's distributed. I
have no idea. So I am you know talent?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Your talent? I love how you said that, I am
you know talent. No, it's like I am talent, which
you're definitely shown today.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I mean, you increasingly feel I increasingly feel guilty for
not doing more things, you know, Like I'm in a
theater company and I'm just an actor in the company,
but there are other actors who also write plays and
also direct, you know, or something, and I feel like
(25:43):
you should have done that, but I haven't and I don't.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So I'm multi talent. Yeah, acting is your gig. Acting
is your gig, which reminds me to ask you what
made acting your thing? How did you know? Like acting
is for me? This is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Well. Once upon a time, when I was a child,
I was asthmatic since the age of two. My mother
was a child psychologist and social worker, and she had
the bright idea that my asthma might be influenced by
(26:26):
emotional distress of some sort and that maybe I needed
to express myself. And she signed me up for acting
class when I was nine and I came into the house.
I was outside plane or something came in and she said, oh,
you're going to take acting class. You're going to the
(26:48):
Willaway Playhouse and take acting classes. And I was like, okay,
and I ran off upstairs in my room and I
remember stopping on the landing in the middle of the
saying that's what I'll do. I'll be a movie star.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
And that was it.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I never changed my mind. I never changed my mind,
and I just went full force, full speed ahead in
life toward that goal. And this is where I have landed.
So how did you movies?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Oh? Okay, So that that leads me to my other question.
I was going to ask you a real sensible question,
but now I have to jump ship on practicality. Who
has the breastcraft table? Who has the best crafty out
of all the movies?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I gotta remember now, so you remember I was only
one the only craft services table that I remember. The
Daughters of the Dust my first movie, but I will
say that TV shows have really good crafty movies. You
(28:07):
don't know, it might be good, it might be. But
TV shows, we're there there every day, five days a week,
and they got somebody who's on the job all you know,
every week. Yeah, they have the best crafty generally. But
Daughters of the Dust, which was my first film. See,
(28:28):
I can show you a poster. Can you see it?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Who won Daughters of the Dust?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, the.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Blue one.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's Cora Lee Day. She played the matriarch
of the family. It was down in South Carolina in
the Sea Islands, and there was some good eating. I
just remember every day. I think I was vegetarian at
(29:02):
the time. I just remember every day eating at Okra.
I loved it with who was Okrah? With tomatoes over rice?
I love that. You don't like Okrah?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
I don't, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
The tomatoes are key because the yeah, that cuts the sliminess,
that cuts out the sliminess.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, you're like, you have Oprah once you have Opra twice? Yeah,
you know if you like it love Like the first time,
you're like, let me try it again because it be
it change and you're like no.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Sometimes they would have fried okra.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Okay, that's a better Oprah, but I still know it's
a still pass of this.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Is our ancestral food.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Well know, no, I know, I know, but I know.
They have a.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Store here in South l A That recently opened. It's
another small grocery store, but they also have some prepared
food with a vegan and they had a nerve to
have gumbo with no okra in it.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
And I was like, the gumbo that I eat, Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
It's not gumbo, that's some soup. M The word gumbo
means okra.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
It does to literally just sip my drink and speak
no more on this.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Subject because I'm thinking about comments. I think it's best.
Okra is good for you, Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
So now I have to ask the practical question, which
is from acting on stage to voice acting, where there
anything whether it's was there anything that you had to
like really change to make that experience is powerful.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I think that the uh, stage acting and voice acting
are more similar than stage acting and film acting, because
in both of those you got to bring it, you
got to bring it across a little more. Film acting,
film and television. You know, sometimes like if I've come
(31:15):
off of a play and then I go to a
film audition, they'll be like, what are you doing? Why
are you do less? Do less? Like, oh, yeah, I forgot.
You're up in my face and I'm doing you know,
too much. But with audio books and stage you can
they they well, they used to look for theater actors
(31:40):
to do audio books. That's how I got into it.
Another theater actress told me that, you know, they were
looking for people, and yeah, so it's it's bigger. Sometimes
when I'm narrating, I like to you have to do
it quietly though you can't have to wear It's something
(32:00):
on this arm to silence my bracelets and you know,
just I don't know, just a gesture helps. It helps
the sound come out, It helps the intention of the
sound come out.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
It feels like you're actually living it. It's like, yeah,
just reading it, it's like, oh, I'm reading and then
you're like, no, this person is lively. You know how
many times you go back and edit because you've accidentally.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Hit something.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
And you're like, maybe maybe they won't notice because I'm
an amateur completely and totally m hm. So I was
just like, yeah, maybe they won't notice. I'll just send
it on over.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, and they're like, you can't do your corrections. That
don't that you made at that time when you hit
the microphone. Okay, yeah, but yeah, so and it's it's
it's more important to you. Like here, I record in here,
(32:59):
it's four feet by four feet is tiny, But when
I go out to a studio to record, sometimes you
have like a whole room, you know, so you can
spread out.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
But yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, Okay, what have you learned
from voice acting that you think you probably would have
never learned from being on film on stage? Oh, I'm sorry,
(33:34):
I didn't mean to make that hard. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, it was like that I can play all that
I want to play all the characters.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Okay, how much fun is that? Though?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
I know?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Right?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And then like it's the one book where I was
Russian in Korean and thank god the engineer had lived
in Korea and spoke from Korean because we would have
been way off. But yeah, but that was fun.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
So you have to like you have to like I
remember being as a class for audiobook narrators and they
were talking about how close to the pronunciation do you
have to get? So you have to learn all of
the foreign language words, Well, if.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Your Bonnie Terpin, you do, because they don't let me
get away with nothing. But I listened to audiobooks and
I was like, this woman is pronouncing mispronouncing this word
the entire book and somehow it came out. How does
this happen? I don't know. I get, I get, and
I get. I get flagged on all my words unless
(34:43):
they're unless it's an African language. They don't know how
to police those quite just yet. So those usually you
can't even find. And then like, you know, I'll do
something and they're like the narrator pronounced it wrong. She
didn't have the I was like, listen, it's not like
a movie. We don't have dialect coaches. You know. I
(35:07):
do the best I can with researching how the dialect sounds,
you know, on YouTube, looking at Nigerian videos and listening
to people talk. And I try to do the best
I can. And I'm actually pretty good at I have
a pretty good ear for dialect. But I'm not perfect.
(35:27):
I've never been to Nigeria, you know, I've known some Nigerians.
I'm not perfect. And in that particular book, there was
supposed to be some people from the South of Nigeria
that sounded different, that was a little beyond my scope
of so I gave them a South African accent and
(35:51):
they were like, the people sounded up from the south,
sounded like South Africa or something. I was like, yeah,
because that's what I knew how to do. That's great.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I'm fairly enjoying this interview. Thank you, Thank you so much.
You've seen all of this, this is making them today.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
I don't do it out of any disrespect for anyone's culture,
you know, but I do the best I can with
what I have to work with. And it's a story. Ultimately,
the book is being produced in America, Okay, it's not
being produced in Burkina, Faso or whatever of the country
that dialect was supposed to be. If it had been,
(36:34):
they would have gotten someone from there. So, you know,
give us a little a little bit of a break.
I do the best, amazing. I'm not trying to not be,
you know, not sound like the culture. I really want
to and I would love for them to give me
a dialect coach or send me to Nigeria or wherever
(36:55):
to learn the dialect. That would be fantastic. But you know,
I would love that. I would.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I'm not gonna lie. That would be amazing. I have
the job where I would be like, oh, I get
to learn in another country. Yes, I'm down for that.
That would be I love it.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
I have mad respect for all audiobook narrators and the
amount of research and time that has to go into
each and every hour. How do you care for your voice?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Not very well? And it was, well, I do what
I need to do. I do a little bit of
a warm up. I'll do, and I drink. I drink
hot water in the morning, first with lemon, and then
(37:47):
I have coffee. But you have to Hydration is definitely
important and will help. The more you can hydrate, the
less you're gonna have to do, which I do all
the time.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
She takes a sip exactly. I was like, all of
a sudden, now I'm really thirsty.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I'm gonna yeah, yeah. Hydration And my favorite vocal warm
up is go from as high as you can go
to as low as you can go on an ooh.
And that helps take swelling out of your vocal cords,
(38:30):
so it soothes them. So that and then I have
you know, I have nasal spray, I have nasal oil.
I have throat spray, I have flown aids. You know,
all different kinds of things can come up. Like I
went to a studio one day to record and I
guess it was spring or the beginning of summer, and
(38:51):
the hay fever got me and it was like and
they ran out and got me a flow name and
it worked.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
So yeah, yeah, that that's just right there, just the
idea of having a flow nase for hay fever. Oh
you you lived in You lived in Maryland, so it's
just starting and you know how very important. Alas for
hay fever, I.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Lived in d C. But yeah, and it gets so
hot there. I had never been that hot. When I
first went to college. I was like, I'm sweating. I
was like just doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
You live in La now, it says, yeah, it's I
heat here. Yeah, we drink our as my friend from
Colorado says, they drink their air. Yeah, They're like they
can get their entire hydration just from breathing.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
She's like, shut up up if you got gills.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
So last question, where can we find out more information
about you? Support your project and get the books that
you have narrated.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, unfortunately, I do not have a personal website yet.
I'll work on that this year, but you can find
almost everything I've narrated on Audible for sure. I tend
to post about things on Instagram about books sometimes and
(40:30):
the co Op. I gave you the website for so
La Food co Op. We're also on Instagram and Facebook
solafoodcoop dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Thank you so much for being here with us today.
I have learned so so much about that, about the
narrator side of things, which is very funny to me.
I don't know why, but like I was like, oh man,
I've sat through so many classes, and I'm like, and
there's still so much to learn. Sometimes the interview more
narrators to learn more.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
You probably have less to learn than you think instead
of doing it. I mean, are you an actor? I
want to be an actor if you're gonna narrate fiction,
but uh, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Acting classes first of y'all. If you're gonna narrate your
own book, Oh, that's the question I should have asked.
So now I'm gonna have to go back and pace
this in what should we know if we're going to
narrate our own books? Oh?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Your own books? It's best to hire a narrator. I'm sorry,
but it's the truth. I've so usually there's so many authors.
I've been like, damn, why don't you call me? Why
don't you call me Tony?
Speaker 1 (41:48):
So how do we do that? How do we get
you as our narrator?
Speaker 2 (41:53):
First you get a published book and the producer a
producer to produce your audio book, and then you say
I want Bonnie Turpin and they'll find me.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Ohad, thank you. These are things I wanted to know
because I was thinking about it and I was like
that that's two one too many steps. I was good.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Those of the major publishers have worked with me already,
and that would be Penguin, Random House, McMillan Audio, Harper Collins,
Simon and Schuster, Hashet, Tantor Audio. Yeah, so I've worked
with all of those audible audible originals. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
He's now there's a nice list that you've worked with.
All Right, I'm gonna go ahead and actually do that
last little bit where I finish off the show. So
my name is Wilmona. But you already know I said
that because I actually forgot how to finish my own show.
It's like I was too busy thinking about how I
was going to be, Like how am I going to
(42:59):
get her as a narrator? And then I was like,
I got it. I do have to finish the show.
You can find out everything that your ladies are up
to at www dot and I thought ladies dot com.
While you're there, go down to the middle of the
page and you can see the charities that we probably support.
We ask that you give them a little time and
support too, does not have to be monetary. You can
give them some time or sometimes some knowledge, get your
(43:21):
hands dirty and actually build something. Who knows. But if
you don't want to do any of that, you know,
there's always the option of money. We thank you in
advance for that. Remember that we.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Also donate to solofoodco op dot com on our website.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Then I make number four apparently I now we now
support our food. Oh okay, Remember that wisdom is all
around you if you're fining and accepting it. So peace
in love you guys from will Noona and the Missing Jade.
Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the writers now. And I thought, Ladies,
this is what happens when you have four podcasts. You
start the podcast and you're like, you know, this is
the one. This is gonna be the and I thought, ladies,
And then the next thing, you know, you're like, with
the writer's glass is such a good one for this one.
And then I was gonna do Ladies tales because she
acts as well. And then I was like, yes, I
(00:22):
could put it on all three, but then I feel
like that's a waste of space because I gotta pay
for all. You know what, before I went into the
whole nerd thing about podcasting, I just recognized no one
cares but me, and since it's me and I'm a narcissist.
Back to what I was saying, I will know no
by the way, and a high five to me for
(00:43):
remember to introduce myself with a small dance. Ooh, it
is freaking soulful looking today goes. I almost wanted to continue,
just be like, yeah, yeah, okay, I'm going to the
club this weekend, y'all. That's exactly what I'm doing. Do
some soulful little this moving fall it dancing in my
chair I'm like on the floor. The bottom half of
me doesn't agree. It does not agree with the soulful ideas.
(01:06):
Any social ideas is like we firmly reject anyway. I
wrote books. Go figure, you would think I was an
orator or an auctioneer with as fast as I'm speaking.
But I wrote books and there and I thought divorce
was bad, and I thought being grown up with ez
if only I were me a memory in verse foreign Coffees,
Widdow's Web and Widow's Debt and those six books. If
you've been with us for a while, you know exactly
(01:26):
how the spiel goes saved with me. Now those six
books wherever audiobooks can be found, I'm giving you a
moment to catch up. Yep, there's your lag time. And
if you you can find out the rest of the
book a boy, the books that we've written written blah
blah blah blah. See, this is what happens when I
try to have audience participation. A narcissist doesn't share their airtime,
(01:47):
messes the whole groove of If you'd like to find
out about the rest of the books that we've written,
that'd be thirteen more books. Equally nineteen books. You can
go to www dot and I thought ladies dot com.
If you're wondering why I look like this today is
because jet lag is real and I just came back
from York. But that's not important at all. You're not
(02:08):
here to hear about me. That's the important thing. You're
here to hear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests. Would
you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Of course? Hello everyone. My name is Bonnie Turpin and
I am an actress an audiobook narrator. I'm also the
founder of Sola Food co Op, an emerging cooperative grocery
store in South Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Hey, okay, so I was gonna start off with what
you know? I should actually start off with how did
you start being an actress? And no, I heard food?
So what's a food co op? How did you get started?
And what's in the food co op? Because I might
need to buy some food?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Oh okay, So a food co op is a consumer
cooperative generally, so there's all different kinds of co ops.
Co Ops are businesses that are owned by the people
who use them, and it can be as few as
two people or unlimited In the case of our store,
(03:17):
which is a consumer cooperative, we will have unlimited amount
of owners. Basically, in a nutshell, in a food co op,
what happens is when you shop at the co op
as a member, which is really an owner. When you're
an owner of the co op, you receive a share
(03:38):
of the profits according to how much you shop at
the store, so you're a part owner. There's generally a
small investment to become an owner. In our store, it's
two hundred dollars per household, so a family can join
the co op for two hundred dollars. And the thing is,
(03:58):
though the co op development, we have to start getting
owners before we actually have the store. So we're in
that little tricky spot where we're selling something that isn't
You can't go shop there yet, you know, if there's
stores not there yet. But we already have seven hundred
(04:20):
and seven households that have invested in the co op
and we're in the site selection phase of our development
where we are looking at sites to actually build out
our store, and I think we found one. It's just
also very chicken and egg with this. It's like, now
that we've found the site, now we really need to
(04:40):
capitalize because we can't really capitalize before we find the site,
you know. So we have a small amount of member
equity that we've amassed, which is what people pay to
join the co op. Part of that we've been using
for operations, you know. But yeah, we're in this little
chicken egg moment where we need to find money to
(05:03):
secure this wonderful site that we found in which to
open our store. But it's been a really long, woof
long journey. And you know, years ago before I started this,
which was twenty eleven before I started this, if someone
(05:24):
had said to me, oh, yeah, you're going to start
a cooperative grocery store, and.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
I would have sent you out your mind. I would
have said, what what makes you think that I, Bonnie Durpin,
the actress, would do something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And I I don't know how I got tapped. I
really don't know. That's why I think that it's just
divine intervention. Because I was going about my merry way
pursuing my acting career and had some successes and saved
some money, was able to buy a home in Los Angeles, right,
(06:08):
so that is a landmark.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
That's a mile alone.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Bought my home in South Los Angeles. Actually, unbeknownst to me,
it was only a few blocks away from where one
of my great aunts used to live. And I think that,
you know, I think things like that draw you to places.
It's like there's an invisible connection that you feel. So
I bought this house, and then I realized that I
(06:36):
was still going back to my old neighborhood to buy
groceries because we only buy organic food and it wasn't here.
And during the time that I've lived here, which has
been since twenty ten, three of our major grocery store
chains have closed in the neighborhood. So we have we
(07:00):
have even we were already a food desert, and now
it's worse. The only uptick is that some of the store, well,
the one grocery store that still exists in my neighborhood
has begun carrying some organics. Not enough for me to
(07:21):
shop there on a regular basis, but there are some,
you know, So I do have a hope of maybe
I can find it here without having to drive for
half an hour, you know. But generally the stores like
Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Sprouts, they're on the outer edges
(07:43):
of my neighborhood. I have to either go towards the
University USC where they have a Trader Joe's, or I
have to go west to Culver City, or I have
to go north to where I used to live in
Hollywood to visit those stores. So we're trying to bring
(08:04):
a store to the hood that's owned by us, so
nobody can decide, you know, oh, we don't want to
pay hazard, pay to our workers and leave, which is
why Ralph's, which is also Kroger's. I don't know if
you have Ralphs and Merlin, but I know y'all have Safeway,
But in Giant, do you still have Giant? Thankfully?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
We call it getting robbed with your eyes open?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Okay, yeah. And that's the thing is some of these stores,
they come into the hood and they will open a
store that's like a third tier grocery store, not their
top level. You go into another neighborhood and see the
same store and be like, whoa, this store's so nice
with the wood floors and everything and whoo, and it
(08:51):
doesn't smell like rotting meat, you know. But in our neighborhoods,
they tend to do less, or they tend to sell
their surplus, you know, what they what didn't move at
some other store, what they had a lot of, you know.
So we want to bring a full service grocery store
that that specializes in natural and organic foods. We'll have
(09:14):
some conventional foods as well, they just won't be genetically
modified or have high fruittose corn syrup or whatever. We
call those clean conventional foods. So we don't want it
to be unrecognizable for people who aren't used to buying
organic food. But we want you to have those options,
(09:35):
and we want that to be available to our community.
So that's the work behind so La Food co Ops
out La Food co Op. It's our website is www
dot s o l A Food co Op dot com,
Solafood co Op dot com.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
So we for the for though, the other couple hundred
or thousand people to buy in so that we can
have this.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Organic absolutely, you know, we'd like to have at least
one thousand to twelve hundred households when we open doors
on the store. But I'm confident that once we announce
the site, there will be a huge uptick in membership.
These people who have already joined, those are the faithful,
(10:29):
Those are the people who like I believe it. I
can see the vision. I'm going to put my money
down now. But there's a lot of people who won't
do that until they see the store exactly and there,
or they see that the store is being built, you know,
so it is coming, it is coming.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Nice. I'm only a huge fan of organic foods, not boy,
It's just that my body only really likes to eat
organic foods, which music body is discerning very high, very
high food built.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Do you have any co ops in your area?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
No, In fact, when you're saying you only have one,
you only have one store. I definitely understand that, completely
understand that because we have one grocery store where I live. Wow,
I live on the edges, so I do have farms.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
What's your zip code?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
They're not gonna find you, Okay, I'm just gonna I
know the name of the city. I'm gonna put that.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
In so anyway, I'll tell you, like as soon as
I as soon as we stop recording, if you tell
you the zip.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Code, I have an app find a food co op.
I'm trying to find you a food co op in
your area.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Now there's a food co op and now where my
mama was born and raised, and we just drive down there.
But for the most part we live like a couple
miles away from some farms, so never terrible to find food.
And besides, I already drive to another state anyway to
(12:12):
get my food. I drive to Pennsylvania to go grocery shopping,
my big grocery shopping with all my I have my freezers. Yeah,
all of that is uh. I drive to Pennsylvania, go
straight to the farm, get it from there, put it
in my freezer.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, it's annoying. My body is very annoying about the
food it eats. But now I think I should probably
focus on your audio book career because I don't play
on the show in any way, shape or form. I
was trying to I was trying to segue from food
to audio book, and I went, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I think I have one.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
You know, love to eat snack food while doing audio books.
Can you tell me about how you got into audiobooks?
That's as good as a second.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Don't get to eat anything while recording an audio book.
You can eat at all you want while listening.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, oh, you don't get to just stop and have
a quick snack in some.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Water and then start stop being the operative word. You
would have to stop. You can't be like damn man.
She went down to the.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I'm not gonna lie. I tried. I tried recording because
sometimes people ask me to do a chapter. Make sure
I'll do a chapter. I tried to do it by
chewing bubble gum. It doesn't it sounded interesting?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Mm hmmm, not neless. That's the character choice, right right,
I did. I don't think that the reviews are out
on it yet. Sometimes I take a risk with the
character and sometimes they hate it. But uh, I had
a book recently that takes place largely in an assisted
(13:56):
living or a co living place for elders, and one
woman had you know, she had the oxygen on.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And I made her talk like like she was gasping
for air a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So we'll see how that goes over. She wasn't the
main character, so hopefully it wasn't too annoying. But I
thought she was very I thought it was very endearing.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Okay, this brings me to the question. I was going
to ask, like fifth down on my list, but I'm
asking now, So when you see characters and books, how
do you develop them like in your mind.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Sometimes it's really just off the cuff, is like what
comes to me in that moment. Sometimes if it's a
major character in the book, I might think of a
person I know or have known in my life that
I want them to sound like. So, you know, uh,
(14:58):
And there's some favorite people. I don't know they'll ever
hear this, but like my stepmother's voice is one she
has to me an elegant sort of education. You know,
she's got a nice, classy lady voice. And there's some
I just did a book recently, and I had an
(15:20):
old friend of my mother's that I remember from when
I was a child, you know, Mallie Bryce, And she
used to say she was from Georgia, and she said, Bonnie, listen, Bonnie,
I declare you know it things like she was. She
was also an elegant lady, but very southern different, you know,
(15:42):
so things. So sometimes I do that. Sometimes I use
the sound of an actual person or sometimes you know
it's a kid, and so you have to go into
the kid area of your voice to make it sound
younger and and the kids are all it's sort of
usually more excited and faster and you know, higher and
(16:05):
faster because their life is new. They're not jaded yet
like you and I quite as exciting every minute. So
uh yeah, and then you know, and then sometimes it's
informed by whatever's in the script.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I had an audition for a play recently. They didn't
have the sense to hire me. But one of the
roles was an ensemble cast and I would have played
like three four different roles, and one of the roles
was an extinct species, the golden toad. And I asked
(16:47):
the casting director, I said, what are you looking for
with this toad character? How am I supposed to sound
like get a rivet? I mean, throw some rivets in?
Or what? How do I do this? And what I
landed on was, you know, this toad was only found
in one special place in Costa Rica, and so and
(17:11):
they talked about if she talked about or he talked
about how they went extinct and how they used to
have these mating frenzies every rainy season they would all
come out of their burrows and get pumping or get pumped,
and that was like one of the lines. And so
I get I thought of her as this sort of
(17:32):
really sort of sexy Costa Rican. I don't. I've never
been to Costa Rica, but I tried to give her
sort of Spanish sound and she was sort of, you know,
hot in my mind.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
The Golden Toad.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
The sad thing though, I did a little research on it.
With the Golden Toad, only the males were golden. The
female were like red, black and green.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Which is also interesting. They needed a little help. Yeah,
shiny personalities, that's what they need. Shiny personalities. Okay, So,
like I love that you get informed first of all
by by people in your life. That's gotta be. That's
gonna make every character like so dear, and then like
you get to interpret and twist on. Oh, it's gotta
(18:27):
because you're.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Not always people from my life. Sometimes they're just you know,
there's five dudes in this book, and they can't all
have a deep voice, so because that'll wear you out
trying to get down there all the time. You can't
always get down there, but you know, somebody, somebody's got
to have an annoying dude voice like this.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You know, I have interviewed quite a few narrators this,
I have to admit, this is very fun, is so fun.
You have bought so many characters to life, like just
like in those few minutes.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Oh my god, thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I'm almost gonna like, I'm almost tempted to ask you
later about like what's your finish what's your rate for
finished hour? I know I'm not gonna be my book
sales aren't gonna be able to take care of it.
But you know, I don't think my rate is high enough.
But it's hard to find out, you know. It's like,
you know, it's kind.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Of it seems kind of rude to me to ask
another narrator, what is your rate? You know I should
be getting more than you, you know, so I rely
on sometimes the people that do the contracts, like am
I charging enough? Like once somebody pulled my coat once
(19:44):
and said you're Bonnie, you're not charging enough. And I
had to say, well how much more? This much more?
This one? They were like this one. Then they were like,
that's more like it. So now I'm ready to raise that. Yes,
you thought maybe I should wait for another award, and
then I could say, no, my.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Rate is okay, which rings meeg hey, y'all, I mean
I'm doing two segues, two segues and one show. It's
looking getting good, which brings me to the Audio Awards.
So what did you air?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I didn't go. I was not nominated this year.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
But you were nominated before.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Oh yeah, a lot.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I want to one before.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And I'm kicking myself that I didn't go this year.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
You know why, hmmm, did you win?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I didn't. I wasn't nominated. That's why I didn't go, right.
Whoopy Goldberg was nominated and she won, and she has
said on the view that I am one of her
favorite narrators, and I've narrated three of her children's books.
(20:59):
And if I had, you know, not been so self
absorbed and noticed that she was nominated, she could have.
I could have asked to present her award and they
would have let me.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Oh my god that I.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Didn't get to meet Whoopee because because when the nominations
came out, I just like, where's Bonnie Turva Monny? I
just looked for my name and I didn't look at
everybody else's nomination.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Oh my goodness, that is hilarious. No. I saw that
she was nominated this year, and I was like, Ooh,
that's gotta be fun for everybody going.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
And she won.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Oh there's one like amazingly cool nominated and you're like, oh,
I should go, and I'm an author, and I still
think about buying tickets to go.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Oh you should go.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I should. I should definitely go and been surprised.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
You know, it's gotten really big and I'm a little
bit sad about that because it used to be this
little boutique, wonderful event for us in this little boutique
niche industry, you know. Yeah, but now it's like everybody
in their mama comes and.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
No you did not. I did not say everybody and
their mama come. They do they do.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Last year when it was in La people, I was like,
I saw actors that I know from, like like my
voiceover agency because we used to like go to in
person auditions. We don't anymore. And I'm like, what are
you doing here? You doing audiobooks now? No, I just
thought i'd come. And you know, basically, so people wanted
(22:46):
wanted wanting to get involved in the industry more so,
and then they're also giving more and more awards to celebrities.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
So yeah, and I'm not gonna lie. It seems like
something fun to do. I mean, I love to get
dressed up and walk.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Over a carpet so yeah, I get I should buy
a ticket. Okay, So I have to ask for the
authors out there that the biggest thing that they always
asking is how do I start getting an audiobook?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
What do I think about? So from your perspective as
a narrator, what do you think authors need to think about?
Top three pieces of advice you would give an author
that's like, I need to get an audiobook.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I'm not an author. The author's path is not one
that I really know.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
What do you look for when you're selecting a project?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Unfortunately, it's not always so many projects that I'm selecting.
Often it's like do I have time, Yes, I'll do it,
you know, unless the you know it looks horrible or
something like. I mean, I rarely say no, but if
(24:02):
it's you know, really bad like or something that I
just don't want to I can't, you know, then I
might say no. But usually I need to make you know, money.
So if I have the time and it's within my
you know, the type of thing that I do, I
(24:23):
would not say no. There's a thing called ac X
whereby authors can find narrators willing to produce an audio
book for you. I do not do that because I'm
going to narrate the book and that's it. I'm not
(24:47):
going to prove read it. I'm not going to edit it.
I don't know how. I don't know how to edit
an audio book. You need an editor for that, you know,
and then you know and then how it's distributed. I
have no idea. So I am you know talent?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Your talent? I love how you said that, I am
you know talent. No, it's like I am talent, which
you're definitely shown today.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I mean, you increasingly feel I increasingly feel guilty for
not doing more things, you know, Like I'm in a
theater company and I'm just an actor in the company,
but there are other actors who also write plays and
also direct, you know, or something, and I feel like
(25:43):
you should have done that, but I haven't and I don't.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So I'm multi talent. Yeah, acting is your gig. Acting
is your gig, which reminds me to ask you what
made acting your thing? How did you know? Like acting
is for me? This is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Well. Once upon a time, when I was a child,
I was asthmatic since the age of two. My mother
was a child psychologist and social worker, and she had
the bright idea that my asthma might be influenced by
(26:26):
emotional distress of some sort and that maybe I needed
to express myself. And she signed me up for acting
class when I was nine and I came into the house.
I was outside plane or something came in and she said, oh,
you're going to take acting class. You're going to the
(26:48):
Willaway Playhouse and take acting classes. And I was like, okay,
and I ran off upstairs in my room and I
remember stopping on the landing in the middle of the
saying that's what I'll do. I'll be a movie star.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
And that was it.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I never changed my mind. I never changed my mind,
and I just went full force, full speed ahead in
life toward that goal. And this is where I have landed.
So how did you movies?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Oh? Okay, So that that leads me to my other question.
I was going to ask you a real sensible question,
but now I have to jump ship on practicality. Who
has the breastcraft table? Who has the best crafty out
of all the movies?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I gotta remember now, so you remember I was only
one the only craft services table that I remember. The
Daughters of the Dust my first movie, but I will
say that TV shows have really good crafty movies. You
(28:07):
don't know, it might be good, it might be. But
TV shows, we're there there every day, five days a week,
and they got somebody who's on the job all you know,
every week. Yeah, they have the best crafty generally. But
Daughters of the Dust, which was my first film. See,
(28:28):
I can show you a poster. Can you see it?
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Who won Daughters of the Dust?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, the.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Blue one.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's Cora Lee Day. She played the matriarch
of the family. It was down in South Carolina in
the Sea Islands, and there was some good eating. I
just remember every day. I think I was vegetarian at
(29:02):
the time. I just remember every day eating at Okra.
I loved it with who was Okrah? With tomatoes over rice?
I love that. You don't like Okrah?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
I don't, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
The tomatoes are key because the yeah, that cuts the sliminess,
that cuts out the sliminess.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, you're like, you have Oprah once you have Opra twice? Yeah,
you know if you like it love Like the first time,
you're like, let me try it again because it be
it change and you're like no.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Sometimes they would have fried okra.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Okay, that's a better Oprah, but I still know it's
a still pass of this.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Is our ancestral food.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Well know, no, I know, I know, but I know.
They have a.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Store here in South l A That recently opened. It's
another small grocery store, but they also have some prepared
food with a vegan and they had a nerve to
have gumbo with no okra in it.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
And I was like, the gumbo that I eat, Okay.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
It's not gumbo, that's some soup. M The word gumbo
means okra.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
It does to literally just sip my drink and speak
no more on this.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Subject because I'm thinking about comments. I think it's best.
Okra is good for you, Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
So now I have to ask the practical question, which
is from acting on stage to voice acting, where there
anything whether it's was there anything that you had to
like really change to make that experience is powerful.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
I think that the uh, stage acting and voice acting
are more similar than stage acting and film acting, because
in both of those you got to bring it, you
got to bring it across a little more. Film acting,
film and television. You know, sometimes like if I've come
(31:15):
off of a play and then I go to a
film audition, they'll be like, what are you doing? Why
are you do less? Do less? Like, oh, yeah, I forgot.
You're up in my face and I'm doing you know,
too much. But with audio books and stage you can
they they well, they used to look for theater actors
(31:40):
to do audio books. That's how I got into it.
Another theater actress told me that, you know, they were
looking for people, and yeah, so it's it's bigger. Sometimes
when I'm narrating, I like to you have to do
it quietly though you can't have to wear It's something
(32:00):
on this arm to silence my bracelets and you know,
just I don't know, just a gesture helps. It helps
the sound come out, It helps the intention of the
sound come out.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
It feels like you're actually living it. It's like, yeah,
just reading it, it's like, oh, I'm reading and then
you're like, no, this person is lively. You know how
many times you go back and edit because you've accidentally.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Hit something.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
And you're like, maybe maybe they won't notice because I'm
an amateur completely and totally m hm. So I was
just like, yeah, maybe they won't notice. I'll just send
it on over.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, and they're like, you can't do your corrections. That
don't that you made at that time when you hit
the microphone. Okay, yeah, but yeah, so and it's it's
it's more important to you. Like here, I record in here,
(32:59):
it's four feet by four feet is tiny, But when
I go out to a studio to record, sometimes you
have like a whole room, you know, so you can
spread out.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
But yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, Okay, what have you learned
from voice acting that you think you probably would have
never learned from being on film on stage? Oh, I'm sorry,
(33:34):
I didn't mean to make that hard. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, it was like that I can play all that
I want to play all the characters.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Okay, how much fun is that? Though?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
I know?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Right?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And then like it's the one book where I was
Russian in Korean and thank god the engineer had lived
in Korea and spoke from Korean because we would have
been way off. But yeah, but that was fun.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
So you have to like you have to like I
remember being as a class for audiobook narrators and they
were talking about how close to the pronunciation do you
have to get? So you have to learn all of
the foreign language words, Well, if.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Your Bonnie Terpin, you do, because they don't let me
get away with nothing. But I listened to audiobooks and
I was like, this woman is pronouncing mispronouncing this word
the entire book and somehow it came out. How does
this happen? I don't know. I get, I get, and
I get. I get flagged on all my words unless
(34:43):
they're unless it's an African language. They don't know how
to police those quite just yet. So those usually you
can't even find. And then like, you know, I'll do
something and they're like the narrator pronounced it wrong. She
didn't have the I was like, listen, it's not like
a movie. We don't have dialect coaches. You know. I
(35:07):
do the best I can with researching how the dialect sounds,
you know, on YouTube, looking at Nigerian videos and listening
to people talk. And I try to do the best
I can. And I'm actually pretty good at I have
a pretty good ear for dialect. But I'm not perfect.
(35:27):
I've never been to Nigeria, you know, I've known some Nigerians.
I'm not perfect. And in that particular book, there was
supposed to be some people from the South of Nigeria
that sounded different, that was a little beyond my scope
of so I gave them a South African accent and
(35:51):
they were like, the people sounded up from the south,
sounded like South Africa or something. I was like, yeah,
because that's what I knew how to do. That's great.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I'm fairly enjoying this interview. Thank you, Thank you so much.
You've seen all of this, this is making them today.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
I don't do it out of any disrespect for anyone's culture,
you know, but I do the best I can with
what I have to work with. And it's a story. Ultimately,
the book is being produced in America, Okay, it's not
being produced in Burkina, Faso or whatever of the country
that dialect was supposed to be. If it had been,
(36:34):
they would have gotten someone from there. So, you know,
give us a little a little bit of a break.
I do the best, amazing. I'm not trying to not be,
you know, not sound like the culture. I really want
to and I would love for them to give me
a dialect coach or send me to Nigeria or wherever
(36:55):
to learn the dialect. That would be fantastic. But you know,
I would love that. I would.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I'm not gonna lie. That would be amazing. I have
the job where I would be like, oh, I get
to learn in another country. Yes, I'm down for that.
That would be I love it.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
I have mad respect for all audiobook narrators and the
amount of research and time that has to go into
each and every hour. How do you care for your voice?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Not very well? And it was, well, I do what
I need to do. I do a little bit of
a warm up. I'll do, and I drink. I drink
hot water in the morning, first with lemon, and then
(37:47):
I have coffee. But you have to Hydration is definitely
important and will help. The more you can hydrate, the
less you're gonna have to do, which I do all
the time.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
She takes a sip exactly. I was like, all of
a sudden, now I'm really thirsty.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
I'm gonna yeah, yeah. Hydration And my favorite vocal warm
up is go from as high as you can go
to as low as you can go on an ooh.
And that helps take swelling out of your vocal cords,
(38:30):
so it soothes them. So that and then I have
you know, I have nasal spray, I have nasal oil.
I have throat spray, I have flown aids. You know,
all different kinds of things can come up. Like I
went to a studio one day to record and I
guess it was spring or the beginning of summer, and
(38:51):
the hay fever got me and it was like and
they ran out and got me a flow name and
it worked.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
So yeah, yeah, that that's just right there, just the
idea of having a flow nase for hay fever. Oh
you you lived in You lived in Maryland, so it's
just starting and you know how very important. Alas for
hay fever, I.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Lived in d C. But yeah, and it gets so
hot there. I had never been that hot. When I
first went to college. I was like, I'm sweating. I
was like just doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
You live in La now, it says, yeah, it's I
heat here. Yeah, we drink our as my friend from
Colorado says, they drink their air. Yeah, They're like they
can get their entire hydration just from breathing.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
She's like, shut up up if you got gills.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
So last question, where can we find out more information
about you? Support your project and get the books that
you have narrated.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, unfortunately, I do not have a personal website yet.
I'll work on that this year, but you can find
almost everything I've narrated on Audible for sure. I tend
to post about things on Instagram about books sometimes and
(40:30):
the co Op. I gave you the website for so
La Food co Op. We're also on Instagram and Facebook
solafoodcoop dot com.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Thank you so much for being here with us today.
I have learned so so much about that, about the
narrator side of things, which is very funny to me.
I don't know why, but like I was like, oh man,
I've sat through so many classes, and I'm like, and
there's still so much to learn. Sometimes the interview more
narrators to learn more.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
You probably have less to learn than you think instead
of doing it. I mean, are you an actor? I
want to be an actor if you're gonna narrate fiction,
but uh, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Acting classes first of y'all. If you're gonna narrate your
own book, Oh, that's the question I should have asked.
So now I'm gonna have to go back and pace
this in what should we know if we're going to
narrate our own books? Oh?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Your own books? It's best to hire a narrator. I'm sorry,
but it's the truth. I've so usually there's so many authors.
I've been like, damn, why don't you call me? Why
don't you call me Tony?
Speaker 1 (41:48):
So how do we do that? How do we get
you as our narrator?
Speaker 2 (41:53):
First you get a published book and the producer a
producer to produce your audio book, and then you say
I want Bonnie Turpin and they'll find me.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Ohad, thank you. These are things I wanted to know
because I was thinking about it and I was like
that that's two one too many steps. I was good.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Those of the major publishers have worked with me already,
and that would be Penguin, Random House, McMillan Audio, Harper Collins,
Simon and Schuster, Hashet, Tantor Audio. Yeah, so I've worked
with all of those audible audible originals. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
He's now there's a nice list that you've worked with.
All Right, I'm gonna go ahead and actually do that
last little bit where I finish off the show. So
my name is Wilmona. But you already know I said
that because I actually forgot how to finish my own show.
It's like I was too busy thinking about how I
was going to be, Like how am I going to
(42:59):
get her as a narrator? And then I was like,
I got it. I do have to finish the show.
You can find out everything that your ladies are up
to at www dot and I thought ladies dot com.
While you're there, go down to the middle of the
page and you can see the charities that we probably support.
We ask that you give them a little time and
support too, does not have to be monetary. You can
give them some time or sometimes some knowledge, get your
(43:21):
hands dirty and actually build something. Who knows. But if
you don't want to do any of that, you know,
there's always the option of money. We thank you in
advance for that. Remember that we.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Also donate to solofoodco op dot com on our website.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Then I make number four apparently I now we now
support our food. Oh okay, Remember that wisdom is all
around you if you're fining and accepting it. So peace
in love you guys from will Noona and the Missing Jade.
Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
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