Defiant Joy! Recording at Wire Road Studios
Find the Hope to Light Your Way, Even in the Darkness
Over the past few months, me and the team at Penguin Random House have been working nonstop in preparation for my upcoming book, Defiant Joy! It releases on February 27, and actually, one great way to support me as a writer is to pre-order. This will help the book rank well and gain visibility on sites like Amazon. For a full list of bookstores where you can pre-order, click here.
In January I had the honor of recording the audiobook with Danny Reeves of Wire Road Studios and Louis Milgrom. Wire Road is an absolutely gorgeous studio frequented by musicians such as Lyle Lovette, Common, and Beyoncé. Danny’s credits in film and television range from Ice Age and Sesame Street to Daredevil and Breaking Bad, and there were whole walls in the hallways covered in movie posters, book covers, musical albums, and awards.
The team was extremely kind and encouraging, and we managed to record the whole book in about 12 hours over two days. This probably sounds weird, but one of my favorite things about recording studios is the smell. They smell like wood and something like Armorall. Like a cross between that new car smell and the inside of an acoustic guitar.
The other thing I love is the silence. When you’re closed into one of those foam-padded sound booths, all you can hear is your own breathing. The microphones they use are insanely sensitive though. There were a couple times when Louis had to tell me to go eat something, because he could hear my stomach growling!
The audiobook is also available for pre-order and I’m really excited for you all to hear it. I am actually considering looking into being a narrator for other audiobooks as well, because I found the whole process really rewarding and honestly pretty easy. Being a vocalist probably helped, as I was already familiar with studio technique and my voice didn’t get tired. It would be really fun to read some fantasy or sci-fi and get to do character voices!
I’m also working on writing articles for some big publications, including Christianity Today. In April, I’ll be sharing some of my Jewish family’s story and tying it in with Passover. More on that soon!
Meanwhile, if you’d like a little preview of Defiant Joy, check out the YouVersion Devotional. It’s a free five-day devotional to help you center your heart on the joy set before us.
Up next in my newsletter I’ll be answering several interesting questions from readers. These include:
How do you handle a situation where your husband isn’t tithing what should be and is very angry that you’re not okay with it?
How would you handle a child predator attending your church?
Those are big questions, and I look forward to tackling them. If you’d like to submit a question, please leave it in the comments below, or if you’d like to submit anonymously, please use the contact form on my website.
More soon!
Jenn