Mali Benvenutti and her "verbal sparring partner for life."
Thank you so much for agreeing to an interview! It’s been a pleasure working with you on “Liquor, Larceny, and the Ordinal Classification of Courtship Rituals,” and I’m looking forward to our next project.
How did you become interested in becoming an audiobook narrator?
A: Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved reading stories aloud. Unlike my more athletic classmates, I prayed for rainy day recess because it gave me the opportunity to share my favorite books with anyone who would listen. While other girls were making cootie catchers and friendship bracelets, I’d be curled up on the big green armchair in the library or sitting cross legged under a table reading Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” to an audience of wide-eyed 1st and 2nd graders.
When I graduated high school at the turn of the millennium (oh god, that makes me sound so old...) and started thinking about potential careers, audio book narration wasn’t even a blip on my radar. I thought the only way I could do the thing I loved—and get paid for it—would be to go into teaching. So I pursued a Bachelors and Masters degree in Elementary Education. But after a few years of dealing with the day-to-day reality of managing a classroom of 30-40 ten-year-olds, I realized that being a teacher was not the right career path for me.
Fast forward a decade or so to spring of 2024, to a casual conversation with my twin sister. I had been reading Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban over Facetime with my nephew. When I finished, she told me that she was impressed with the way I brought each of the characters to life, and the ease in which I went back and forth in acting out their dialogue. She said I should consider going into narrating professionally.
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A few days later, I posted on Facebook that I was interested in taking on audio book projects, and within 24 hours, a spunky, Savannah-based mystery author named Tina Whittle PM’d me. (The response was so immediate that I almost didn’t respond out of concern that she may have been an AI bot or a Russian asset. Luckily for me, she wasn’t either of these things. As far as I can tell, anyway...) The rest, as they say, is history!
What’s your favorite part of the job?
Ooh. Good question. I would have to say that it’s the creative outlet. As someone who identifies as a “highly sensitive person” (shout out to all my fellow HSPs and neurospicy peeps in the audience), I am constantly looking for opportunities to express myself emotionally in a way that doesn’t make my husband or random passersby question my sanity. Since I play a mild-mannered administrative assistant forty hours a week, I particularly enjoy narrating fiction because it gives all my alter egos a chance to take center stage and flex their muscles.
Can you describe your process?
As an ADHD-American, well-thought-out processes and routines are not something that come naturally to me. But if I had to describe how I tackle a narration project, it would be as follows:
1) Read the manuscript in my head a few times first.
2) Record a rough draft.
3) Playback on repeat ad nauseum
4) Obsessively email critical notes to myself about what to fix. Ask for feedback from others.
5) Record a second draft. Rinse. Repeat.
6) When I’m reasonably happy with a draft, that’s when I go to my studio to record an audio file for submission to the production company.
7) Cross my fingers and pray that the file is usable and doesn’t require a ton of “voice overs” (narrator-ese for “audio corrections”).
Any advice for someone starting out in this profession?
As someone who is also pretty new to the profession, I am constantly learning something new about audiobook narration. But here are my top 5 (so far):
Mali's Studio!
1) It pays to invest in decent equipment. If you want to make a career out of this, purchase the best audio equipment you can afford. The audio recording kit I use—FocusRite Scarlett—was recommended to me by my production company, and it produces a much more professional sound than other “plug and play” USB mics I’ve used.
2) Find a super quiet place to record, and don’t be afraid to get creative. Case in point: I currently live in a rental property in the heart of downtown of a bustling city. There is nowhere in my house where you can’t hear drivers blaring their bass at decibels loud enough to shatter glass, or sirens wailing at all times of the day. Paying for time in a professional recording studio was not feasible, so I went to the interwebs and searched for “alternative recording spaces for people on a budget.” A forum on Reddit suggested renting and converting a storage facility. So I talked to my husband, and when our landlord advertised storage facilities at one of his other properties in the city for $40/month, we decided to take him up on it. We prepped the 7x20-foot room with two boxes worth of those stick-on sound-proofing tiles from Amazon. We set up a six-foot card table and a folding chair, and covered every inch of surface area with a bazillion moving blankets. Add laptop and FocusRite Scarlett and VOILA: Mali’s new studio!
3) Rest. Your. Voice. Voice narration can be physically exhausting. When you’re in the zone, it’s super easy to overdo it. Your vocal cords are just like any other muscle—they can wear out and break down if you over-tax them. Don’t spend more than two hours at one time recording, drink a lot of water, and give yourself at least one day between recording sessions for optimum performance. Think of it as verbal leg day. Trust me. I’m married to a doctor (a doctor of Political Science, but still).
4) Listen to other professionals who inspire you to hone your craft. At the top of my current audible playlist are Stephen Fry (the absolute best narrator of the Harry Potter series), Andy Serkis (aka Gollum), and Hugh Fraser (of Poirot fame). Not only are each of these British actors incredibly talented and versatile in their delivery, but you can tell they really throw themselves into each and every performance to the point where it is almost impossible to tell where they start and their characters begin.
5) Outsource the production part if you can. Prior to venturing into the audio book narration biz, I assumed that narrators only did the voice acting part. But what I quickly found out is that most people who hire themselves out as independent narrators are often responsible for the production side as well. For those of you who don’t know, voice acting is the easy part. Production, aka mixing and engineering the raw audio, takes a lot more technical know-how than just using a professional mic and pressing “record.” For every 1 hour of recording time, it takes a minimum of 3 hours in post-production to massage that raw audio into a format that meets the professional standards of audible and other audio book vendors. I don’t know about you all, but this working girl ain’t got time for that. Luckily, I have the great fortune to work with an incredibly talented and professional production group called Scott Ellis Reads. They are a family-owned business based out of Massachusetts, but can work with anyone, anywhere. So if anyone reading this needs a referral, reach out to Scott Ellis and tell him Mali sent you.
What else do you like to do?
It depends on who we’re asking. If you’re asking me, I’d say sing karaoke, watch baking competitions, and host elaborately themed parties. If you ask my husband, it would be: argue (as the daughter of two lawyers, this was inevitable), procrastinate, and find thoughtful presents for our collective family members.
Reviewers have praised your energy and animation in “Liquor & Larceny,” describing your voice as “luscious and clear.” Is it difficult to keep up that kind of energy over an entire performance?
A: Yes and no! When I enter the studio, I try to leave “Mali” at the door and become whoever I think the author wants me to be. It’s much easier to get into the right mindset for fiction narratives because there’s more dialogue, more dramatic cues, and more opportunities to emote. Nonfiction is a lot harder because you have to read “straight” while still holding the audience’s attention. It is ridiculously easy to get stuck in monotone when reading fact-centered material, but the one thing I strive for is to never be boring. If it sounds like something that would put my nephew to sleep, Auntie M needs to try a different approach!
What’s next for you creatively and/or professionally?
I’m currently recording a biography written by my mother, retired judge and award-winning civil rights historian, Lise Pearlman. The book is titled Call Me Phaedra: the Life and Times of Movement Lawyer Fay Stender and was originally published in 2018. The book tells the life story of Fay Stender, a trailblazing, brilliant Jewish woman lawyer from the San Francisco Bay Area who came to national and international fame in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and who tragically took her own life after an attempted assassination left her paralyzed. Although she was best known for representing Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton and “Soledad Brother” George Jackson in their respective murder trials, among her many impressive achievements, Fay was responsible for changing the makeup of the American jury from the “12 Angry White Men” of the 1960s to the more diverse juries we see today. The Huey Newton trial was the subject of another award-winning book of my mother’s called The Sky’s The Limit: People v. Huey Newton—The Real Trial of the Century? It was the basis of a short documentary that she also produced called “American Justice on Trial,” which made the shortlist for Oscar-nominated documentaries in 2023! We are hoping to get the audio version of Call Me Phaedra ready for release by March 1, 2025, just in time for Women’s History Month.