Hillary Huber

"I love my job," says narrator and commercial voice-over veteran Hillary Huber. "I can't believe I get to do this from my very own studio. I love to ingest someone else's words and put them back in the world."

With Audies and Earphones Awards, one might expect that Huber would rest on her laurels. But honing her skills is a top priority, and listening to audio is one way she does that. "I love listening for entertainment and for learning from my talented colleagues," she explains. "I'm in awe of fellow narrators and their commitment to the art form of narration. The many highly dedicated narrators make me want to continually improve." Currently, Huber has Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS, read by Dylan Baker, cued up in her car. Read More...

Joshua Swanson

Joshua Swanson has garnered glowing reviews as well as AudioFile's commendation as one of the "Best Voices of 2010" in Young Adult audio. Only three years ago, George James at Audible listened to his voice demo. "He picked me out of obscurity, asked if I'd consider doing audiobooks--and here I am."

Swanson soon realized that narrating books wasn't a brief stopover on his career path but a career that takes advantage of his training as a theater actor, his improv experience at Chicago's Second City, his voice-over and animated character work, and his self-professed love of reading and telling a good story. Read More...

Linda Emond

Award-winning actress Linda Emond has played a doctor on "Law and Order" and Simone Beck in the film "Julie & Julia." Next year, she'll star in a Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman, directed by Mike Nichols. But what matters even more to us audiobook fans is her much-lauded narrations, including Laura Lippman's newest suspense novel, I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama's most recent book, THE ESSENCE OF HAPPINESS.

In addition to being an actress and audiobook narrator, Emond is an avid reader who often has a stack of six or seven books piled beside her bed. "I've always loved big bodies of text!" Seriously, she says, "I am in awe of writers. As an actor, I feel a great responsibility to the author who has invested so much time and heart. It's my job to elucidate what they create. I always start preparing for a role from a storytelling position. I look at the overarching purpose of the story and how my role informs that purpose." She pauses. "No matter what the role is. Even in a commercial, when I might have only one line of voice-over." Example? Suddenly sincere, warm, reassuring, with a hint of sexy, she says, "Axa Equitable is redefining what you expect from annuities." Trust me. It works. Read More...