If you’ve ever wondered about the process of turning your book into an audiobook, or what it takes to work as an audiobook narrator, then this episode is for you. Danielle Muething and Gary Leo Smith, two professional narrators based in Ohio, share a behind-the-scenes look at the art of audiobook narration. They discuss everything from how to get started as a narrator, how much money narrators can expect to earn, different pricing models, what authors should consider as they seek out a narrator for their books, AI’s impact on the industry, rights considerations, the editing process, and a lot more.

Danielle Muething and Gary Leo Smith are members of Ohio Audiobook Narrators, a support group for professional and aspiring audiobook narrators.

Danielle Muething has been an actor, singer, dancer, and teacher. She is currently an audiobook narrator, voice over artist, and writer. This year she released her first book with a second coming soon - both of which she will narrate. When she isn't narrating or writing, she is reading, playing video games, watching movies, and hanging out with her husband and two dogs.

Gary Leo Smith has narrated over 30 audiobooks and stories on many subjects, from real estate and self-improvement to military thrillers and children’s books. After a career in marketing and art direction, he turned his curiosity about audiobooks into a second career. He records in a home studio he designed and does his own audio production. Gary is an avid reader, and his other pursuits are aviation, scuba diving, and the occasional round of golf, played somewhat poorly. He is a founding member of Ohio Audiobook Narrators (OAN).

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram or Facebook.

Denise Phillips, the owner of Gathering Volumes, an independent bookstore in Perrysburg, Ohio, offers holiday gift recommendations for readers of all ages and interests. From eels to dragons, baked goods, murderbots, Toni Morrison/Buffy the Vampire Slayer mashups, and a lot more, listen to get some holiday shopping ideas for the book lover in your life.

Books Denise recommends:

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram or Facebook.

Author and illustrator Julia Kuo discusses her picture book Luminous: Living Things That Light Up the Night, which won the 2024 Floyd’s Pick Book Award. She shines a light on bioluminescence, the mysteries of the open ocean, squids and glowworms and jellyfish, illustration career paths, her journey to becoming an author, and the art of making our own light.

Julia Kuo is the author and illustrator of Let’s Do Everything and Nothing and Luminous. She is the illustrator of many picture and specialty books, including The Next Scientist, When Love Is More Than Words, and the bestselling Rise. Julia has created editorial illustrations for publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist. She has taught at Columbia College Chicago and at her alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis. Julia has been an artist-in-residence twice at the Banff Centre for the Arts and a 2019-2021 fellow with the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry at the University of Chicago.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Halloween is right around the corner, so grab your pumpkin spice lattes and join us as we explore Ohio’s cemeteries with Ian Adams, Randall Lee Schieber, and Robin L. Smith, the photographers and author, respectively, of This Place of Silence: Ohio’s Cemeteries and Burial Grounds. Our guests discuss the process of photographing and writing about cemeteries in every county in Ohio, cemetery art and architecture, the history and evolution of the American cemetery, unique gravestones and monuments, famous figures put to rest in Ohio’s burial sites, the literary inspiration behind the book’s title, and a lot more.

Ian Adams has twenty-one photography books and more than sixty-five Ohio calendars to his credit. He conducts nature and garden photography seminars, workshops, and slide programs throughout North America and taught digital photography at Ohio State University’s Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster from 2010 to 2019.

Randall Lee Schieber is a professional photographer based in Columbus, Ohio. He specializes in editorial, architectural, location, and travel photography and has published eight books and fifteen calendars. His work has appeared in a variety of local and national publications.

Robin L. Smith is the research director at Columbus Business First newspaper. She is the coauthor (with Randall Lee Schieber) of Columbus: A Photographic Portrait and Ohio: Then and Now, and the author of Columbus Ghosts: Historical Haunts of Ohio’s Capital and Columbus Ghosts II: More Central Ohio Haunts.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Page Count hit the road in July to record a panel interview with authors and podcasters Rob Harvilla, Libby Kay, and Alex Rowland in front of a live audience at the Columbus Book Festival. Listen in as Rob, Libby, and Alex discuss their work, offer tips for other writers and podcasters, define “podcast princess,” share mistakes and lessons learned, reveal why the Columbus Book Festival was one of their favorite events, and encourage writers to aspire to be cockroaches. Yes, cockroaches. Also, Laura explains how she messed up the original event recording and had to fix her mistakes, so that’s fun!

Rob Harvilla is the host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the '90s, the author of the book of the same name, and a senior staff writer at The Ringer. He recently debuted the next iteration of his podcast, 60 Songs That Explain the '90s: The 2000s.

Libby Kay is an author of romance novels, including the Buckeye Falls series. The most recent novel in this series is Forever to Fall; she promoted Faking the Fall at the Columbus Book Festival. Libby cohosts the Romance Roundup podcast with Liz Donatelli.

Alexandra Rowland is the author of fantasy books, including A Taste of Gold and Iron and A Conspiracy of Truths, among others. Alex’s latest novel is Yield Under Great Persuasion; they promoted Running Close to the Wind at the Columbus Book Festival. Alex was a four-time Hugo Award-nominated podcaster as a cohost of Be the Serpent.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

In celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University, David Hassler, the Bob and Walt Wick Executive Director of the Wick Poetry Center, sheds light on the Center’s history, programs, and community impact while also sharing a few poems and discussing highlights from the recent anniversary events.

Robert Wick, a sculptor and former art department faculty member at Kent State University, and his brother, Walter Wick, established the Wick Poetry Center in memory of their sons. Today, the Wick Poetry Center encourages new voices by promoting opportunities for individuals and communities locally, regionally and nationally. Wick engages emerging and established poets and poetry audiences through readings, publications, workshops and scholarship opportunities.

David Hassler directs the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. He is an author, editor, poet, and playwright, with works including the poetry collection Red Kimono, Yellow Barn, for which he was awarded Ohio Poet of the Year 2006; May 4th Voices: Kent State, 1970, a play based on the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project; Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community, a documentary book he authored with photographer Gary Harwood, and which received the Ohioana Book Award and the Carter G. Woodson Honor Book Award; and additional co-edited works. His TEDx talk, “The Conversation of Poetry,” conveys the power of poetry to strengthen communities.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Brian Schoen, Ph.D., and Timothy G. Anderson, Ph.D., the editors of Settling Ohio: First Peoples and Beyond, discuss Ohio’s history, the inspiration for and genesis of Settling Ohio, their process for putting the book together, academic publishing, and more. Settling Ohio: First Peoples and Beyond was Ohio Center for the Book’s 2024 Great Reads from Great Places selection for adult readers and represented the state at the National Book Festival.  

Timothy G. Anderson, Ph.D., is an associate professor of geography at Ohio University.

Brian Schoen, Ph.D., is the chair of the Department of History and the James Richard Hamilton/Baker & Hostetler Distinguished Professor of Teaching in the Humanities at Ohio University. He is the author of The Fragile Fabric of Union: Cotton, Federal Politics, and the Global Origins of the Civil War and has coedited three other collections.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Chiquita Mullins Lee and Carmella Van Vleet, authors of the picture book You Gotta Meet Mr. Pierce!, discuss the life, art, and significance of Elijah Pierce, a celebrated, self-taught Black folk artist known for his wood carvings. They share how their book grew out of Lee’s play about Elijah Pierce, their collaborative writing process, their experience viewing Pierce’s carvings at the Columbus Museum of Art, what it means to them personally to tell Pierce’s story, and more. You Gotta Meet Mr. Pierce! is Ohio’s 2024 Great Reads from Great Places youth selection and represented the state the 2024 National Book Festival. The book is illustrated by Jennifer Mack-Watkins.

Chiquita Mullins Lee is an Arts Learning coordinator at the Ohio Arts Council, where she coordinates Ohio’s Poetry Out Loud program along with the Arts Partnership and the Big Yellow School Bus grant programs. Her play about Elijah Pierce, Pierce to the Soul, will be return to the stage on November 1, 2024, at McConnell Arts Center in Columbus.

Carmella Van Vleet is a former teacher and the award-winning author of almost two dozen books for kids and adults. She lives in Ohio and likes lists, exclamation points, and baking shows. But not necessarily in that order.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Poet Sara Moore Wagner takes listeners on a deep dive into the life and legend of Ohio-born sharpshooter Annie Oakley. As the subject of Wagner’s latest poetry collection, LADY WING SHOT, Oakley appears as an allegorical figure whose stories are built on both fact and fiction—a woman irrevocably connected to the myth of the American West, the cult of fame, feminism and gender roles, and the history of American gun culture. In addition to Oakley, Wagner discusses craft, her writing process, how she puts a poetry collection together, tips for poets looking to submit their work, and more.

Sara Moore Wagner is the author of three prize-winning full-length books of poetry: Lady Wing Shot, winner of the 2023 Blue Lynx Prize; Swan Wife, winner of the 2022 Cider Press Review Editors Prize; and Hillbilly Madonna, winner of the 2022 Driftwood Press Manuscript Prize. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Tumbling After (Red Bird, 2022) and Hooked Through (Five Oaks Press, 2017). She is a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award recipient, a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. In 2023, she became the Managing Poetry Editor of Driftwood Press. She teaches Creative Writing part time at Northern Kentucky University, where she recently received their Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity award. She lives in West Chester, Ohio.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

What do ghosts, unicorns, The New Yorker, and wild wallpaper patterns have in common? James Thurber, of course. Laura and Don take Page Count on the road to give listeners an audio tour of the Thurber House in Columbus, where Leah Wharton, operations director, and Steve Andersson, a docent and educator, shed light on the life and work of the American humorist James Thurber. In the process, they seek out the ghost(s) that allegedly haunt the house, consider the age-old cats vs. dogs debate, spy a unicorn in the garden, discuss Thurber’s books and cartoons, and much more. To view photos from Page Count’s visit, be sure to visit our accompanying blog post, “Inside the Thurber House.”

James Thurber was a humorist, cartoonist, author, playwright, and journalist known for his quirky and relatable characters and themes. One of the foremost American humorists of the 20th century, Thurber’s inimitable wit and pithy prose spanned a breadth of mediums and genres, including short stories, illustrations, modern commentary, fables, children's fantasy, and letters. Many of his drawings and stories first appeared in The New Yorker. Some of Thurber’s famous tales include “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “The Night the Ghost Got In,” “The Dog That Bit People,” “The Night the Bed Fell,” and “The Unicorn in the Garden.” Thurber’s drawings often feature dogs and family life.

Founded in 1984, Thurber House is a nonprofit literary arts center, museum, historic landmark, and gathering place for readers, writers, and artists of all ages based in the restored 1873 home of James Thurber. Thurber House programs include The Thurber Prize for American Humor, author events featuring nationally bestselling authors and local authors, writing workshops for children and adults, writer residencies, and more.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email [email protected] (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.