Remember that announcement I teased a while back? Well, it's ready to be announced: Between the Salt Water and the Sea Strand is getting an audiobook adaptation!
Not only that, but the narrator is none other than David Ault, co-creator of the Jodcast, professional voice actor, and all-around awesome guy! We got to chatting on a comment thread on a Jodcast X post, I asked him if he'd be interested in the project since the character of the faerie king was actually partly inspired by him, and now an audiobook has happened, and it turns out social media can be useful after all!
David has been an absolute joy to work with, and he did an amazing job drawing the listener into the story and bringing the characters to life, and even singing which he gets a jillion gold stars for. (And, being English, he can do a much better British accent than I can.)
He also did me the huge service of going through the text and making sure everything was in proper British English. Because as much as I love the UK, I have never been there (yet), and although I grew up reading a lot of British children's literature, enjoy following British astronomy, have written way too much Neopets fanfic that was required to use British English to be accepted for publication in the Neopian Times, and I think nowadays I actually listen to Brits more than Americans*, there are some definite gaps in my knowledge (usually about items that are not related to astronomy or food or medieval combat). (Did you know they call crosswalks "pedestrian crossings" there? Wild!)
So I am indebted to David for giving me a crash course on British English (and a fascinating side trip into British geographical nomenclature!), as well as correcting things that I promise I actually already knew, but that I missed when I was converting the manuscript from American to British English. To make a short story long (which I can do because this is my blog and there are no word count limits that I have yet found), I originally wrote the manuscript in American English despite the story taking place in England, simply because I am American, I live in America, and aside from aforementioned fanfic with specific publication requirements, I feel it's dishonest of me to pretend to be British when I write. But when David signed on for the audiobook, I figured that sort of gave me the green light to just go ahead and make it British. It's an international production, much like the James Webb Space Telescope and Fraggle Rock! (But I still missed some odd things in the transition, like calling trousers "pants" which is British English 101, and not spelling "armour" the Commonwealth way, despite my Neopets fics involving quite a bit of armour and I am perfectly aware how it's supposed to be spelled and I am still kicking myself about it. I think I need more sleep. David was so patient with me and he deserves a medal.)
Anyway, that's neither here nor there; the point of these ramblings is that the audiobook is coming to Audible very soon, so keep an eye out for it (or keep an eye on this blog, or my social media, I guess)!
*Speaking of listening to a lot of British people, I think I've begun to pick up a little bit of an English accent, which is going to be very awkward if I ever have a real spoken conversation with a British person. I guess I could try hard to sound more American? Would they even notice? Am I just overthinking everything again?????