Narrators

Talking with Mel Foster

Mel Foster, winner of the 2006 Audie Award for FINDING GOD IN UNEXPECTED PLACES, is a former ad-agency executive who used to record test tracks for commercials. Every now and then a client would say, "Why are we hiring someone else? I like this guy." That gave Mel, a theater major in college, the idea that he might one day be a narrator for audiobooks. After auditioning at two APA job markets, Mel's career was underway. Recent reads include EYE OF VENGEANCE by Jonathan King, IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT by John Saul, SNOW BLINE by P.J. Tracy, and Invincible by Vince Papale. Mel prefers recording fiction because he gets to "act." In nonfiction he has to hold himself back. He adds an Earphones Award to his honors for the novel MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN . In it, the main character has to play 18 holes of golf with a series of historical figures including Freud, Gandhi, John Lennon, and Beethoven. Mel found Picasso's Catalan Spanish particularly challenging, and, because he has a deep voice, "Marilyn Monroe was a little tough." Mel, the author of several novels including SHAKING HANDS WITH LEFKOWITZ hopes that one day listeners will get the opportunity to hear him reading something that he's written himself.