libraries

A woman wearing a hooded jacket and shoulder bag, holding orange headphones.

So I did an audiobook thingy…

Back when we published Black and Blue, it occurred to me that we should probably have an audiobook version of it – particularly for accessibility reasons, given that most of my clients have low or no vision.

We looked at a few voice actors, but had trouble finding someone:

  • with the right ethnic and cultural background (if you’ve read the book, you’ll hopefully understand why a white person probably shouldn’t be reading for Jade’s mum in the 21st century),
  • who could stay in a convincing Australian accent 99% of the time,
  • with a good home recording studio setup,
  • that we could actually afford.
Mockup of a reader holding a mobile phone displaying Black and Blue by Lee-Ann Khoh, with earbuds plugged into a headphone jack.
Image credit: AllAuthor

Long story short, a few people suggested I should just read it myself. So I did, but it ended up taking a few years to complete, lol. That’s what happens when you don’t pay people what they’re worth. 😜

In all sincerity, thank you to my colleagues at VisAbility for volunteering their time to bring an audiobook of Black and Blue into the world.

That meant, among other things, painstakingly listening to my voice. For hours. Hours. You think I’m sitting around listening to hours of myself talk? Hell no! But these amazing humans subjected themselves to it willingly.

Right now, the audio is just available at VisAbility Library – so you’ll need to have a print disability to download it. But I may make it commercially available in due course if that’s what people want. 😉

Download Black and Blue from VisAbility Library.

Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not reflect the views of my employer or any other staff members.

Foreground text reads: Just Feb 14 things. Background contains a rope loosely knotted into a love heart shape.

Just Feb 14 things

I’ve never been much into Valentine’s Day. Maybe because I’m a perennial spinster at this point. Which is not a bad thing – I fully intend to rock some silver pigtails like an ageing Wednesday Addams someday.

But I will happily take your heart-shaped chocolates. Or any shaped chocolates. Mama don’t discriminate. 😉

No V-Day celebrations for me though. I just had an ordinary day at work. Busy and okay. Chocolate-less apart from my morning mocha.

February 14 is also the Australian Library and Information Association’s Library Lovers’ Day. Since working in academic and special libraries, I haven’t really celebrated it, other than to pop into local public libraries to see what displays they’ve got. “Blind date with a book” is always a winner.

Just get a library card, folks. It’s a great gift to yourself. Once you get the card, you don’t even need to physically enter the building if you don’t want to because, hello, eResources.

You can read up on interesting tidbits like how Captain Cook was stabbed to death after attempting to kidnap the ruling chief of Hawai’i. On February 14, 1779.

Or that YouTube was launched on February 14, 2005. Unfortunately too late to save me from horrendously cutting my hair. These days I could just search “how to cut your own emo fringe” but alas, not in the 90s and early 2000s.

I guess what I’m saying is February 14 is a lot of things, and means a lot of different things, and also nothing at all.

Probably didn’t warrant a whole-ass blog post but if you’re down here, you still read it. 😛

PS. 9 years ago, I wrote The History of February 14, a flash fiction story for Every Day Fiction. It’s not necessarily something I’d write now… I penned a whole bunch of second person stories around that time because I was trying too hard to be edgy or something… but this was probably one of the better ones. You can check it out on the Every Day Fiction website and let me know what you think.