We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Heather Ling. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Heather below.

Alright, Heather thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I’m still learning audiobook narration. I believe for any skillset, you should always be learning and improving, that also includes my career as a dietitian. With audiobook narration, I started with YouTube videos and learning on my own. I then took a course to help me improve my set up and learn the industry also. From there I did narration work outs, took classes and workshops and 1:1 coaching.
Knowing what I know now, I honestly don’t think there is anything different I could have done to speed up my learning. There’s a process and trusting the process and the hard work you put into it is all a part of the process. In the end, it comes down to lots of practice and the only way to get better is more time and more, you guessed it, practice.
The most essential skills in audiobook narration are acting and perseverance. Acting because you have the skillset to do the job and perseverance because it will still take a lot of rejections to get to where you want.
The biggest obstacle is time and capacity. There is never enough time to learn enough of what you want, and even if there is, the capacity to retain the information and not burn out is another huge obstacle. That is why trusting the process, going at a strong but steady pace is so important.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I had an urge to do something different. A family member had suggested it years before I actually decided to try and become an audiobook narrator. But once I made the decision, I dove in, head first. I continue to work full time as a dietitian, my creative work hasn’t yet generated enough income for me to pivot, but that is the goal. I still love my work as a dietitian. I love seeing patients and helping them grow. I specialize in liver transplant, short bowel disease, gastrointestinal diseases and malnutrition. But over time, healthcare has worn me down. It’s a privilege to be a part of their lives, a privilege to be a part of the team that keeps them alive and I don’t want to take that for granted, yet I’m ready to move on.
Healthcare has so much emotional depth, from happiness to tragedy, but as a healthcare professional, you are rarely allowed to show emotion. The patient’s and their families’ emotions take center stage as they are the priority. After bottling up my feelings for so long, I needed an outlet. Dancing and narrating has provided that outlet for me. All the variety of emotions I’ve felt over the years of being in healthcare, I can release into narrating books. I can pull genuine emotions and apply them to the stories.
I am proud of all the work I’ve done in my career and in narrating. I continue to learn and improve. I hope to move listeners when they hear the books I’ve narrated. I want authors to know that I care about every word they put on the page and will perform it with my full heart and dedication.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me is that I get to express myself in different ways. I believe people are multifaceted, we are not just what people believe us to be or what they expect of us. Being able to narrate different characters and genres allows me to fully express different sides of myself.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I believe the best way for society to support artists and creatives is by doing their research and finding the creatives that they want to support directly, searching for their small business instead of consuming products that are mass produced. It takes a little more effort and time but it means so much more to creators. Also purchasing directly from the creator is the best way to support them. For many authors, distribution sites take a huge cut of their profits which then means they have less to invest back into the book community such as the artist that creates their cover art, the narrator that narrates their book, the marketer who helps market their book etc.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://heatherkayling.com
• Instagram: @heatherkayling

Image Credits

Veronica Zepeda