I've recorded a brief excerpt from the opening to my novel Dirty and uploaded it to SoundCloud. You can listen to it right here:[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/95422298" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]In case you missed it, an essay I wrote about my novel was featured in Airplane Reading.

In honor of Friday the 13th, I've uploaded to SoundCloud a recording of a short story of mine, "Skitter," about a man losing all of this teeth. It's the first time I've recorded myself (except for an experiment or two for teaching English as a second language), so please forgive the faint whine of a lawn mower coming from outside! I think it adds a certain je ne sais quoi. More aural fun to come![soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/52771480" iframe="true" /]

So I've got this reading in a month, and I've been thinking a lot about sound and how important reading aloud is for writing. Even without having a performance to prepare for, I like to read drafts aloud to see where they're working or not. The story I'll be reading this August 1, "More Like Home Than Home," uses a lot of footnotes, which is a special listening challenge, so I've enlisted my friend Kristen Young to perform the story with me as the voice of the footnotes. I'm really excited to be working on this with her.I've also been playing with SoundCloud and hope to record a story or novel chapter soon (and I posted a recording from my last Castalia reading for now). In the meantime, here's a fabulous article on writing and sound from Constance Hale.