Nina's Story:
How I Came to Narrate the
Audio Versions of Diana Rubino’s New York Saga Books
I’m
Nina Price and I thoroughly enjoyed reading and narrating all three of Diana
Rubino’s New York Saga books: From
Here to Fourteenth Street, Bootleg
Broadway and The End of
Camelot. The characters are delightful and the stories compelling. In
fact I enjoyed Diana’s books so much that I offered to do another one: For Love and Loyalty, which
should be available by next fall.
Diana
thought her readers would enjoy knowing more about me. So here’s a bit of the
story about how I became an audiobook narrator.
MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH
“AUDIOBOOKS” - THE SINGING LADY
As
a child growing up in New York many of the adults in my family read stories to
me, but my first experience of someone reading me a story and creating special
voices for all of the characters, was when I listened to Ireene Wicker, The Singing Lady on WNYC radio. Like
millions of children before me, I was enchanted by The Singing Lady and her stories. Most of all, I loved her voices.
At the time, I never thought that I could or would tell stories with voices,
but apparently a seed was planted.
I Started Each Day in
College with 30 Minutes of an Audiobook (Even though they weren’t called “audiobooks”
in those days)
I
studied music as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
I’m fond of telling people that when I graduated from high school, even though
most kids received a typewriter for a high school graduation gift, my Dad gave
me a radio. I had to borrow a typewriter each week to write a paper for my
Freshman English class, and I listened to my radio each morning as I began my
day.
East
Lansing, MI the home of Michigan State University was also home to WKAR radio
where Dick Estell, The Radio Reader read
30 minutes of fiction each morning to me through my beloved radio. Dick Estell
didn’t really create voices for his characters but I loved his readings and
never missed an installment, except when I was out of range.
UNBEDTIME STORIES – My Own Foray into Radio
Storytelling
I
never started out to be like Dick Estell, or Ireene Wicker, but in fact the Unbedtime Stories segment of my radio
show Dancin’ in the Fast Lane with Ann
Arbor premiered along with the show in April of 1993. My radio show was,
and still is a music show on KFJC 89.7 FM kfjc.org in the San Francisco Bay
Area each Wednesday morning from 6 to 10 am. I added the Unbedtime Stories segment to my show because I wanted to learn to
cold read – to be able to pick up a script and just read it cold.
Dick Estell
Unbedtime Stories featured up-and-coming works by up-and-coming authors read by me. Later it included writers who participated in NANOWRIMO, National Novel Writing Month – which one of my listeners introduced me to, and which debuted in the San Francisco Bay Area. For twenty years I read (or hosted) Unbedtime Stories.
Then
audiobooks came along. Since I had read stories on the radio for years, I
figured I should narrate audiobooks. In December of 2015 I got started and I’ve
been going strong ever since. To date I’ve produced about 40 books for Audible.
Nina
Price narrates audiobooks, and is a Licensed Acupuncturist and Master Herbalist
in Palo Alto, CA. Ann Arbor continues to
host Dancin’
in the Fast Lane each Wednesday morning (kfjc.org)
Find out more about Nina and her audiobooks -- click on: her new website.
Contact Nina
