By Linda Jay Geldens
Becky Parker Geist, a new BAIPA Board member, is a voiceover professional who can, upon request, access a variety of voices from wacky cartoon characters to serious roles like Dame Fortune in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and can launch into accents ranging from British to Southern to pure New Yawker.
She received her M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and her B.A. in English and Theatre from Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Becky then began her voiceover career in 1981 as a staff narrator for the Library of Congress’ Talking Books for the Blind Program. One of their most popular narrators, she recorded 70 titles during a two-year period.
In 1984 she and her husband moved to California with their baby daughter. Eventually, two more daughters arrived; currently, one lives in Los Angeles, one in New York City, and one in England.
Besides doing voiceover work, Becky is a stage actor, acting coach, theatre director, playwright (she’s currently on tour with the one-woman show she wrote, Joy with Wings: A Daughter’s Tale), screenwriter, teacher, and Executive Director of Chaucer Theatre.
Becky’s versatile acting background serves her well as she tackles books for self-publishers that might call on her talents to interpret historical figures in a novel or animals in a children’s story. She has a particular love of creating children’s audio-enhanced ebooks, including sound effects and original music, and also doing voiceovers for animated films.
Becky discovered BAIPA in March 2012, thanks to her friend, author/attorney Sandy Shepherd, who thought Becky’s unique talents might enliven books written by self-publishers.
Becky’s philosophy? “Great stories can uplift and transform. Effectively delivered from the heart, the voice allows the stories to come alive inside the listener, like a warm light being turned on and revealing a whole new world. That’s what I do. I reveal new worlds that the author has created.”
Becky has created the Book Audiologist Award Contest, and is currently accepting entries of books for children (details are on her www.proaudiobooks.com website), as a way to help authors expand their marketing efforts, while exploring the possibilities of how an audiobook version of their book might sound. Weekly finalists have segments of their books podcast. The 2013 winner will receive an audiobook version at no charge. BAIPA authors who have worked with Becky include Geraldine Boyce and Susan Pace-Koch.
Becky Parker Geist is committed to providing exceptional, inspiring, accessible voiceover services to self-published authors. As she says, “I stay vulnerable to what is being conveyed in the story and allow it to affect me.” Her versatile voice truly brings characters to life.
* * *
