Brilliance Featured Authors

Laurie Halse Anderson “There’s something about the shape of a spoken word that resonates within me. Storytelling is traditionally an experience shared by the speaker of the tale and the listener. Written text is a relatively modern construct that doesn’t always carry the same impact as the spoken story.” Read More

Jean M. Auel Fans of Jean M. Auel’s hugely successful Earth’s Children series have been waiting 10 years for the fifth book about Ayla and her companion, Jondalar, in Pleistocene Europe. Read More

Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson Dave Barry says he was ecstatic when he heard that Jim Dale had agreed to narrate the audio of PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS, the prequel to Peter Pan, which Barry co-authored. "The man is unbelievable," Barry says. "He has more voices than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir." Read More

Elizabeth Berg Elizabeth Berg, known for her life-affirming books about people in crisis, likes to listen to audiobooks with one exception: her own works. “The truth is I don’t listen to my own tapes because it’s hard to hear someone read your work in a way that you wouldn’t. So with my own work I tend to just listen a little to hear what the voice is like.” Read More

Orson Scott Card We gave an enthusiastic YES! when Fantastic Audio offered to set up an interview with award-winning author of science fiction and fantasy Orson Scott Card. The author of the popular Ender and Alvin Maker series, Card is well represented on audio. Read More

Michael Chabon When Michael Chabon was about 8 or 10, he knew he wanted to be a writer. “I wanted to write about kids, about poor kids, like me.” In those early days, the author of WONDER BOYS and THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY (2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction) especially enjoyed reading Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander, and comic books. Read More

Lee Child Among mystery aficionados, Lee Child has become a household name. His nine novels featuring wandering ex-M.P. Jack Reacher have all done extremely well, beginning with his award-winning debut novel, Killing Floor (1997). Reacher is a mysterious but attractive character, traveling silently across the country, finding trouble and then resolving it. His adventures have taken him from Key West to Maine, from Chicago to L.A., and points between. Read More

Michael Connelly These days, Michael Connelly, creator of Harry Bosch, listens to more books than he reads - but they're "never, never" his own. "I have this image of Harry in my mind; I keep adding to his character as I go along," says the prolific crime writer, who has been on a book tour signing his latest, THE NARROWS. Read More

Catherine Coulter For 30 years Catherine Coulter has been entertaining fans with widely popular novels, including historical romances, romantic suspense, and suspense thrillers. In 1988 she hit the New York Times Bestseller List for the first time with her historical novel MOONSPUN MAGIC. She has now made the list 59 times. Read More

Robert Crais Robert Crais is crazy in the best possible sense of the word. His books ring with madcap characters as well as profound human observation, and in real life he is as charmingly sincere as he is nutty. AudioFile caught up with Bob Crais just as his latest thriller, HOSTAGE, was hitting the stands. The abridgment of HOSTAGE marks Crais’s first endeavor as an audiobook narrator. Read More

Janet Evanovich Janet Evanovich barely has time to sit down, let alone read. The months between June and November 2002 saw the publication of three new books: HARD EIGHT (the eighth novel in the popular Stephanie Plum series), FULL HOUSE (first in a new series of zany romantic adventures), and VISIONS OF SUGAR PLUMS (a novel-length Christmas story featuring Stephanie Plum). In September Evanovich took the time to chat with AUDIOFILE about reading, listening, and the art of storytelling. Read More

Linda Greenlaw "I still like to think of myself as a fisherman," says Linda Greenlaw, of Isle Au Haut, Maine, "but when I'm gone for two months on a book tour as well as the time it takes to write and record the books, I have to wonder!" Greenlaw's first book, THE HUNGRY OCEAN, climbed to the top of the bestseller lists on the heels of Sebastian Junger's PERFECT STORM. Read More

W.E.B. Griffin "Audiobooks are very important and growing more important all the time — and you may quote me!" says W.E.B. Griffin, speaking dynamically with the same judicious word usage that shows up in his words in print. Read More

Alice Hoffman Though many listeners have discovered the work of Alice Hoffman through her most recent books —TURTLE MOON; LOCAL GIRLS, made into a movie; and HERE ON EARTH, an Oprah selection — she’s no overnight sensation. She’s been writing and publishing for 25 years. A trip to the fiction section of Borders reveals nearly a whole shelf of her work. Read More

J.A. Jance “The sacred charge of the storyteller . . . is to beguile the time,” says Judith “J.A.” Jance, author of more than twenty successful crime novels. “Native American peoples often call their legends ‘winter telling tales’ because they’re not supposed to be told when people ought to be out hunting and gathering. I think the sound of a human voice relating a story takes readers right back to that ancient tradition. Read More

Iris Johansen In the early 1980s, with her children leaving home for college, Georgia homemaker Iris Johansen began filling her empty nest with the array of fictional characters who populate the romance novels she wrote for the Bantam Loveswept series.. Read More

Jonathan & Faye Kellerman One might imagine, at first blush, that there’s a cottage industry a-plying its trade in the comfortable Beverly Hills home of Faye and Jonathan Kellerman (and their four children)—two of the better-known and more successful current mystery writers. Read More

Tracy Kidder Tracy Kidder has been reading aloud for the better part of a day and a half when he stumbles over the words “lymph nodes.” “Shoot!” His engaging tenor voice drifts from the speaker in the control room. “I’ll take it again.” Read More

Stephen King & Stewart O'Nan Stephen King's friendship with Stewart O'Nan was born out of a literary dispute. Nine years ago, O'Nan wanted to title his third novel DEAR STEPHEN KING. King says, "I loved the book, hated the title. I felt he was using me." Eventually, O'Nan dropped King's name from the novel. He says he came to realize how many people want a piece of King. "It's a level of celebrity I wouldn't wish on anyone." Read More

Rochelle Krich It was three o’clock Friday afternoon when AUDIOFILE sat down with Rochelle Krich in the lobby of the Austin, Texas, Renaissance Hotel. She was attending Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, at which her story “Bitter Waters” was nominated for an Anthony Award in the Best Short Fiction category. She had two hours before she needed to head to her room to prepare for the Sabbath. Keeping kosher and observing the Sabbath might seem daunting for a woman on a two-month cross-country book tour, but Krich is up to the challenge with a graceful smile. Read More

Dennis Lehane You won’t hear Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of MYSTIC RIVER; GONE, BABY, GONE; and his new book, THE GIVEN DAY, read any of his novels on audio, but it’s not for the reason you might think. He has a pleasant bass voice and speaks clearly. “It’s too much work,” he explains. Read More

D.J. MacHale D.J. MacHale bounds to the front of the library room, where nearly 100 middle school kids are assembled to meet the author. Another hundred will follow in the next school period to hear MacHale talk about Pendragon, and his latest RAVEN RISE, number 9 in the 10-book series, Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space. Read More

Debbie Macomber Debbie Macomber has written so many bestselling novels that the list of titles on her Web site scrolls for several pages. The number of audiobooks she’s heard may be almost as long. Read More

Ed McBain Ed McBain is a man who knows no rest. With more than 80 novels to his name—50 that have been adapted to audio-book—he continues to put in a full day’s work despite having recently completed his latest book, Candyland, co-written with another award-winning author, Evan Hunter. What makes this collaboration unique is that Ed McBain and Evan Hunter are the same person. Read More

Todd McCaffrey Fans of science fiction queen Anne McCaffrey, whose tales of the dragons of Pern have delighted audiences since 1968, were pleased when she took on a new co-author. That collaborator, who debuted with 2003's DRAGON'S KIN, is her son Todd, whose contributions spark hopes that characters such as Halla, Pellar, and Zist will be around long after the elder McCaffrey retires. Read More

David Morrell David Morrell is most known for his thriller FIRST BLOOD, which introduced the world to Rambo. "The thriller," says Morrell "is a story whose pace increases as it progresses. Like other stories, thrillers engage the reader's emotions, but with the thriller that emotion is usually fear. Read More

Marcia Muller "My father was a great storyteller," Marcia Muller told us from her home in Californiafs Sonoma County. "Every evening he would tell me a story when I went to bed. He'd make up fantastic stuff. He would act out different roles—it was really funny." It was this early love of stories, and her experience listening to them, that helped the Anthony and Shamus Award-winning Mystery Grandmaster learn to structure stories and keep them moving. Read More

Perri O'Shaughnessy Perri O’Shaughnessy is the pen name of two sisters, Pamela and Mary O’Shaughnessy, whose series featuring Lake Tahoe attorney Nina Reilly is now nine novels strong. Pam is a lawyer living in Hawaii. Mary, who lives in northern California, is trained in writing and has worked as a multimedia producer. “There’s nothing like the warmth of a human voice telling a story,” Mary tells us. “That’s the great pleasure of audiobooks. It’s something adults can enjoy just as they did listening to their parents read them a book in the old days.” Read More

T. Jefferson Parker Jeff Parker is Southern California, through and through. He was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Orange County, and now lives east of San Diego. The initial “T” in front of his name is legal, but it doesn’t stand for anything. “My mother told me that she and Dad put the T. there because it would look good on the president’s door.” But instead of a president, Mr. and Mrs. Parker had a mystery writer. Read More

Mary Pipher Mary Pipher was a college professor, psychotherapist, and community activist in 1994 when Reviving Ophelia, her bestseller on the needs of adolescent girls, made her a national celebrity. Read More

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child "Reading out loud is the purest and most ancient form of storytelling," says Douglas Preston, half of the Preston-Child team that has so far created nine novels. Their books cross the boundaries from thriller to horror to science fiction to mystery, creating a challenge for booksellers to pigeonhole them into a single genre. Co-author Lincoln Child explains, "In difficult times people seem to frequently turn away from real horrors to invented ones--horrors they can switch off when they feel like it. Our books aren't horror; they're techno-thrillers with a frisson of the supernatural." Read More

Ian Rankin Sound emanates from Ian Rankin's novels, whether in print or on audio. His books, featuring Detective Inspector John Rebus, are dark and edgy police dramas set in the author's native Scotland. But instead of bagpipes you're more likely to hear the Rolling Stones or The Cure. Read More

Nora Roberts According to PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, Nora Roberts has written more bestsellers than anyone in the world. How does she do it? “Reading is the best writer’s tool in the box,” Roberts says. “I did plenty of that as a child. I think sometimes you’re just a born storyteller. You have to learn the nuts and bolts in order to turn that storytelling ability into articulating an entertaining story on the page, but a lot of times it’s instinctive.” Read More

Karin Slaughter Mystery writer Karin Slaughter, whose latest is BEYOND REACH, wanted her Grant County series to have a Southern narrator who didn’t sound like a hillbilly. “Joyce Bean’s narration,” she says, “is close to the voices that I heard in my head. She does well with the subtleties of colloquialisms and accents. And she doesn’t make anyone sound like they’re from a trailer park.” Read More

Wilbur Smith Historical novelist Wilbur Smith is “riding high on the wave” of popular and critical response following the release of THE QUEST, the latest in his bestselling Egyptian series. Read More

Minette Walters A few years ago, British suspense novelist Minette Walters packed up the audio versions of all her books and sent them to the woman who had been headmistress of her childhood boarding school. “I got this sweet letter in reply.” Transforming her naturally exuberant tone into the precise diction of a 99-year-old retired schoolteacher, Walters recites the words from memory... Read More

Stuart Woods With twenty published novels, and more than thirty audiobooks, few writers are as well rep-resented in the audiobook world as Stuart Woods. When asked how he feels about people listening to his books rather than reading them in print, Woods told us, “I’m just as happy if they listen as if they read, but my vanity prefers that they listen to the unabridged version. I think the spoken tale has an advantage, since the teller of the tale is real, and not just a collection of words on the page.” Read More