About the Authors
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is an author and Hugo-nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His debut novel, The Worker Prince, received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases. His short stories have appeared in magazines, anthologies, and online and include stories in The X-Files and Decipher’s WARS. As an editor he has edited books by such luminaries as Alan Dean Foster, Tracy Hickman, Frank Herbert, Mike Resnick, Jean Rabe, and more. He was also the first editor on Andy Weir’s bestseller The Martian.
Amy Landon, Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a voice artist and classically trained actress with numerous film, television, and off-Broadway stage credits. Her voice can also be heard on many television and radio commercials. She has an easy facility with dialects, which she also coaches and teaches, and she is happy to find her lifelong obsession with books pairing up with her acting and vocal work. Her narration of Texts from Jane Eyre placed as a finalist for the Audie Award for Best Humor Narration in 2016.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.
About the Narrators
Amy Landon, Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a voice artist and classically trained actress with numerous film, television, and off-Broadway stage credits. Her voice can also be heard on many television and radio commercials. She has an easy facility with dialects, which she also coaches and teaches, and she is happy to find her lifelong obsession with books pairing up with her acting and vocal work. Her narration of Texts from Jane Eyre placed as a finalist for the Audie Award for Best Humor Narration in 2016.
Stina Nielsen is an actress and audiobook narrator. Her reading of Kevin Henke’s Junonia earned her a 2011 Best Voice from AudioFile magazine. She is the winner of three AudioFile Earphones Awards.
Tim Campbell, winner of AudioFile Earphones Awards, is a narrator and actor based in Los Angeles, California. He studied at the University of California and earned a BA in music and theater and a certification from the prestigious Great Books program at Pepperdine University, where he graduated magna cum laude. He is also a classically trained singer and performs regularly with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Los Angeles Opera Chorus, as well as on studio soundtracks for film and television.
James Langton, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002.
Lisa Flanagan is a classically trained soprano, comedian, voice-over artist, and Earphones Award–winning narrator.
Natasha Soudek was raised in the South, speaks native German, lived in Berlin and Vienna, and finally settled in the Lower East Side of New York City. After honing her stage presence by studying acting and playing hundreds of live music shows (singing and playing bass), she moved to LA to record with Channel/DreamWorks and act on TV. Her voice is as distinct and memorable as the range of characters she’s played on-screen.
Hillary Huber, a Los Angeles–based voice talent with hundreds of commercials and promos under her belt, was bitten by the audiobook bug in 2005. She now records books on a regular basis and has been nominated for several Audie Awards and won numerous Earphones Awards.
Nancy Peterson is a voice talent and audiobook narrator who won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2018.
Shiromi Arserio is a stage actor, voice talent, and audiobook narrator from London. She holds a BA in theater from Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. In addition to narrating dozens of audiobooks, her voice can be heard in documentaries, e-learning projects, and video games.
Emily Lawrence, an actor and writer, is passionate about bringing stories to life. Her greatest strength as a performer is her ability to bring herself to the role, creating a wide range of emotionally resonant performances that leap off the page, stage, or screen. Her favorite characters are complicated, conflicted, and still searching for their inner truths. She has narrated more than 425 audiobooks, many of which were USA Today or New York Times bestsellers, and has also worked in film, television, and theater. Born and raised in New York, she moved to Los Angeles shortly after receiving her BFA in drama from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She also lived in London while studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her greatest loves are acting and reading, so narrating audiobooks is a dream come true. Her other passions include traveling, LARPing, aerial circus, and chocolate.
Natalie Naudus is a Taiwanese American actor who started out as an opera singer, with a master of music from the University of North Texas. She has a passion for stories and characters, and her language training has allowed her to develop a skill for accents and convincing foreign language dialogue. She lives in Virginia.
Ramón de Ocampo, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, was a cowinner in 2018 of the Audie Award for Best Multi-Voiced Performance. A graduate of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, he has been seen on television, film, and stages all over the world, including recurring roles on such television shows as The West Wing, 12 Monkeys, Sons of Anarchy, and Medium. He is the winner of a prestigious Obie Award for his stage work.
Cindy Kay is a Chinese Thai American narrator and educator who grew up in the California Bay Area and lives in the Rockies. Her work has been described as listening to a “cozy best friend.” She narrates fiction and nonfiction, and has studied Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, and Japanese.
Zura Johnson is a classically trained stage actor. She has performed in stages from her childhood home in California to the East coast, and all the way to Singapore. She has now worked in theater and as a voice actor for more than twenty years. She holds an MFA from the Old Globe Theatre and the University of San Diego.
Kimberly M. Wetherell is a classically trained actor, award-winning filmmaker, international opera director, published essayist, and talented audiobook narrator.
Kelli Tager is a Los Angeles–based, award-winning narrator. She earned a BA in theater arts from UCLA, studying in England for her junior year. She returned to the UK for a master’s in Shakespeare. After graduation, she continued to act in theater, film, and television until she discovered voice-over. She now does voice acting exclusively in commercials, animation, and audiobooks.
Stephanie Németh-Parker is a SAG-AFTRA audiobook narrator, voiceover artist, and actress with over thirty years of experience. With a voice that has been described as warm and soothing, her versatility and adeptness with accents has enabled her to work on a multitude of projects.
Ellen Archer has narrated numerous audiobooks and has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards, as well as the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. She is an actress, and singer with a degree in opera performance from the Boston Conservatory. She has performed extensively on the New York stage and in regional theaters.