a little about me...
I love sound
I like to say that some people are lovers of sound and others lovers of light, resonating with one more than the other. Some people surprise me and love both equally and that's pretty admirable.
In my journey, I've mostly been a sound lover, though I have my visual romances as well. I love the way natural dyes in my cotton clothing make me feel like I just got plucked from a patch of wildflowers. I love how wet rocks shine over a pool of sand. But even more, I love the way my cotton clothes and the rocks feel on my skin. That feeling resembles the way sound affects me. It feels more intimate, the vibrations literally touching my being as I behold sound.
And we, with our voices, have this Godlike quality of making heavenly sound, making sound heavenly. Acting and creating audiobooks - it's all a way for me to dive into that source and share the love: the love of writers for their words and imaginative ideas, the love of actors who wants to share in the process of living, and the love of sound and visual imagination as we create light in our own minds inspired by what we hear.​​​​
narration
I'm still in the process of discovering where my voice fits in the world of audiobooks. Cues from others are important to me. For example, when I was cast to do a psychological thriller (Insensible Loss) I was pleasantly surprised and ran with it. Being of Middle Eastern descent (my parents are from Iraq), has attracted various books whose authors were themselves born in the Middle East. That surprised me too.
While I'm fairly new to narration, having really started in 2022, I immediately threw myself into the arms of various teachers, including seasoned acting teachers, narration aficionados, accent and dialect experts, and vocal trainers. ​​​
official degrees & certificates
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Yoga Teacher, ERYT-200 (2011 - current)
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Master of Liberal Arts, Women's & Gender Studies (2011)
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Bachelor of Arts, Psychology (2003)
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Real Estate Sales License (2003)
languages
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Comfortable with IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
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Comfortable pronouncing Sanskrit, some Arabic, Chaldean (modern Aramaic), and French
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Intermediate conversational Spanish
technical
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Mackie Pro FX audio mixer
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Rode NT-1A microphone
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Adobe Audition software
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Detail oriented
training
Accents & Dialects
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Paul Meier (4 week sessions)
British & British Isles
Dialect Masterclass | June 2024
Dialect Masterclass | July 2024
Amanda Quaid
Oral Posture Wkshp | May 2024
Acting
Michigan Actors Studio
Advanced Scene Study (8 weeks sessions)
Fall 2024
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Acting Mastery (8 week sessions)
Kate Peckham | Emilio Rodriguez
Winter, Spring, Summer 2024
Fall 2023
Introduction to Acting for Film
Emilio Rodriguez (6 weeks)
Winter 2024
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Monologue Workshop
Brian Marable
Fall 2023
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Introduction to Acting (8 weeks)
Kate Peckham
Summer 2023
Joel Froomkin
Acting for Audio | Levels I & II
(15 week sessions)
one-on-one training
​Narration Performance Coaching
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Sean Pratt (Ongoing)
Nonfiction
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Joel Froomkin
Fiction, Nonfiction
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PJ Ochlan
Fiction/Dialects
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Vocal Training
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Jennifer Viets
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