When I woke up this morning, I realized exactly who I wanted to narrate the audiobook for the novella. And no sooner did I go to Facebook to see what she’d been up to lately than I found she was in the endgame of her own crowdfunding campaign.
As I write this, you have 29 hours left to get in on it. Claire is an amazing writer with a particular gift for voices. Her own writing voice, with its unabashed enthusiasm and theatricality, is as unmistakable as it is welcoming — which makes all the varied character voices in her stories, songs, and poems the more remarkable.
And then there’s her literal voice, the one you can hear narrating podcast stories or singing or performing poetry. I mean, really performing it, because she’s got theater training and a bunch of legitimate stage acting experience. I give a pretty good reading, but man, I admire people who go to readings and truly perform.
For years, I’d been reading her stuff online in the places where it’s appeared for free. Every time she released a book, I put it on my list of things to buy in person from the traveling booksellers on the convention circuit, looked forward to reading it avidly…and then lost track of it. So the opportunity to load up on several(!) of Claire’s books in one go, for less than I’d have paid retail to the traveling booksellers, while supporting her in making something entirely new was an opportunity I jumped at.
I’d supported other people’s crowdfunding campaigns before with signal boost, a book review quote, a story for a benefit anthology, but this was the first campaign that ever moved me to take a credit card out of my wallet.
If her kind of thing — mythic, slinky, funny, jubilant, occasionally dark, deeply kind — is your kind of thing, now’s a good time to go get it.
And, Dear Reader, I now have an audiobook narrator lined up for one of my stretch goals. If my book goes into the world with the bones I gave it, a face by Kate Baylay, and C.S.E. Cooney’s voice, it will be a gorgeous thing indeed.
