Milwaukee Author Wins Prestigious Audie Award Nomination

MILWAUKEE, Jan. 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Rebecca Anne Nguyen, a Milwaukee novelist and playwright, has received a prestigious Audie Award nomination for her audiobook, The 23rd Hero. The novel, about a woman who travels back in time to stop climate change before it begins, is a top five finalist in the Narration By The Author category, pitting debut author Nguyen against the likes of Whoopi Goldberg and Salman Rushdie.

The Audie Awards® represent the pinnacle of achievement in the audiobook industry and are often likened to the Oscars. Past winners and nominees include Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Sam Heughan, and many other widely recognized names.

The 23rd Hero was narrated by Nguyen, who voices more than 30 characters in accents ranging from French to Swedish. "I hadn't planned on narrating the audiobook myself," said Nguyen, "so when I was writing, there were no limits to where my characters came from or how they spoke. My heroine encounters people from France, Mongolia, and Australia because it makes sense for the world of the story. But recreating those characters off the page was an entirely different challenge."

Nguyen worked with New York City dialect coach Erik Singer (Austin Butler's coach for his iconic role in Baz Lehrman's Elvis). "Erik is a miracle worker," said Nguyen. "He helped me craft unique voices for dozens of characters and gave crucial insight into voicing different genders and ages. We worked through the hairiest dialect problems I could imagine, like how to recreate a French accent from the 16th century when modern French didn't even exist yet. This nomination could not have happened without him."

The audiobook was recorded at Independent Studios in Milwaukee, WI, with sound recording and design by Steve Kultgen. The 2025 Audie Awards® winners will be announced during the Audies Gala in New York City on March 4.

Rebecca Anne Nguyen (she/her) is the winner of the 2024 Reader's Choice Award for Best Adult Book (Bronze) for her debut novel, The 23rd Hero, a #1 Amazon bestseller that Pulitzer finalist Susan Choi called "a wild and marvelous ride." Rebecca's writing has appeared in the New York Times, Insider, and Slackjaw, among others.

SOURCE Rebecca Anne Nguyen