It was an odd-hour Zoom call—me at 1 p.m. in California, and my narrator April Doty at 10 p.m. in Spain—when we dug right into the core of my debut novel in the Jane Benjamin series, Copy Boy.
April’s questions in advance of narrating my book weren’t just about pronunciation or pacing. She was excavating the inner life of Jane Benjamin, my protagonist—a young, naive, Dust Bowl Okie trying to become a San Francisco columnist.
“What does Jane know about her mother, right here?” April asked, probing the layers of my narrator’s consciousness. “Is she still angry? Has she forgiven her mother this far into her life?”
April wanted to understand not just the words, but the subtle landscape of what Jane knew and how she felt about it.. How does a young woman sound when she’s deliberately withholding something? How does that same voice change when she speaks as an older woman looking back on that tumultuous time?
I saw what should have already been obvious to me. April would do more than a reading. This was interpretation. This was making meaning.
April breathed humanity into my text. She wasn’t just narrating a story—she was translating human experience. She won a medal in the Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Awards for her work on Tomboy.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, especially after listening to a recent interview with Keith Riegert, CEO of the Stable Book Group, which has recently acquired my novels’ imprint, She Writes Press.
“Especially for the generations that are coming up now,” he said, “just being able to get content to them in a way that they’re already enjoying entertainment is really powerful and wonderful for the industry.”
In other words, if the market isn’t reading traditional books, then deliver a story to them via audio, which they’re already comfortable with.
But not just any kind of audio. We’re standing at a crossroads now, where synthetic A.I. voices threaten to replace human voice.
Imagine an audiobook narrated by a computer. In fact, you may have heard one already. The words are correct. The pronunciation is perfect. Technically accurate, but devoid of soul. Like a paint-by-numbers version of the Mona Lisa.
I remember April asking me, Should the sound of Jane’s voice imply that she’s been hiding her identity from us throughout the book? Does she feel guilty? Apologetic?
The art of human narration goes far beyond word translation. A skilled narrator understands the subtle emotional landscapes between the lines. When a character is experiencing heartbreak, a human voice can convey that weight in their tone—with a catch in the throat, the barely contained tremor of emotion. A synthetic voice can pronounce “I’m devastated,” but can it make you feel the devastation?
This is storytelling in its most primal form. Long before we wrote words, we passed down knowledge and experience through voice. Around campfires, in tribal gatherings, through generations—stories were a living, breathing thing. An audiobook narrated by a human continues this ancient tradition. Each pause, each subtle inflection carries generations of storytelling DNA.
Riegert warned us about the coming wave of synthetic voices in audiobooks, a potential “massive proliferation” of low-quality production. His concern isn’t just about artistic integrity—it’s about preserving the fundamental connection between storyteller and listener.
Consider the craft of narration. A human narrator makes hundreds of instantaneous artistic choices in a single chapter: when to speed up to create or enhance tension, how to differentiate between character voices, where to add a moment of quiet reflection, how to navigate complex emotional terrain.
These are not algorithmic decisions. They require emotional intelligence, lived experience, and an intuitive understanding of human communication.
The technical argument for synthetic voices is obvious on the surface. They’re cheaper. They’re faster. They don’t require scheduling, payment, or management.
But they fundamentally misunderstand the power of storytelling.
This morning I saw April quoted about this in a Guardian article:
“I don’t know anybody who wants a robot to read them a story, but I am concerned that it is going to ruin the experience to the point where people don’t want to subscribe to audiobook platforms any more,” says Doty. She hasn’t lost jobs to AI yet but other colleagues have, and chances are, it will happen. AI models can’t “narrate”, she says. “Narrators don’t just read words; they sense and express the feelings beneath the words. AI can never do this job because it requires decades of experience in being a human being.”
In our increasingly digital world, human connection becomes more precious, not less. Listeners don’t just want information—they want experience. They want to feel understood. Technology can’t replicate the resonance of the human voice.
I’m not rejecting technology. I’m understanding its limitations.
For readers, listeners and authors, this means being intentional. Support narrators. Celebrate the human voice. Recognize that when you listen to an audiobook, you’re participating in something far more complex than simple transfer of information. You’re inhabiting the character’s skin.
As Reigart sees it, the publishing industry is wrestling with this tension. How do we embrace technological efficiency without losing the soul of storytelling? Audiobooks represent a beautiful battleground for this conversation.
Stories entertain, but they are fundamental to how we make sense of our lives. This means an audiobook narrator is not just a conduit—they are a translator of human experience. They are in our ears, in our head.
I fell in love again with Copy Boy when I first heard April narrating it. I couldn’t believe how touched I was by my own characters, because of the way she brought them to life.
To the synthetic voices emerging on the horizon, we might say: You can read the words. But can you tell the story?
The future of audiobooks isn’t about technological perfection. It’s about preserving the imperfect. The real.
April Doty has narrated all three of my Jane Benjamin books and is at work now narrating An Unlikely Prospect.
Thanks to amazing book people
Last weekend I attended the second Sacramento Book Festival on Saturday and the Bay Area Book Festival on Sunday. I was pooped afterward but grateful for both events. The planning committee in Sacramento, sponsored by the California Writers Club, really impressed—so many readers and writers, full audiences for every panel, just a whole lot of fun. And in the Bay Area I was pleased to spend actual in-person time with She Writes Press authors I’d only met online, as well as our publisher, Brooke Warner, and my publicist Julia Drake.
I followed that up this week with a great book talk with author/interviewer Joan Griffin at the Sierra College/Osher Lifelong Learning Institute for her Author Spotlight Lunchpail Series. When I retired from teaching at Sac State, I knew I’d miss talking about ideas. Because of events like this, I get to keep that conversation going. Best yet? One hundred percent of the fees donated by attendees go to the Sierra College Food Pantry.
More to look forward to.
In two weeks I’ll head to Las Vegas for the Historical Novel Society of North America conference. I’ll join three other historical novelists, Jody Hadlock, Leslie Johansen Nack, and Joan Fernandez, to talk about the special issues with presenting historical fiction for modern readers. There will be a lot of dining and talking too, I’ll bet.
Consider a preorder, pretty please
It would be so nice for you to pre-order An Unlikely Prospect before its August 19, 2025 pub date. For all kinds of algorithmic reasons, it makes a difference in the life of a book.
I hope to see you out there at bookish events.
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