Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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A Marvelous and Melancholy Very Good Year

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I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs,
From the brim to the dregs,
And it poured sweet and clear,
It was a very good year.

These lyrics are from the nostalgic song “It Was a Very Good Year” composed by Ervin Drake in 1961 and made famous by Frank Sinatra. The song meanders through my mind as I contemplate my 68th birthday today. I’ll never again experience such a year as it brought extortionary happiness tempered with bitter heartache.

At home, I’m immersed in life with a good man who loves me and supports my weirdness. I’m close with my son and his family and with my stepson. This year my career surpassed expectations with multiple writing awards, speaking opportunities, and success with my new memoir Frozen Dinners. After my publisher, Brown Books Publishing Group, sold the audio rights, I completed the narration at a professional sound studio in Los Angeles. The book and eBook became bestsellers and received a writing award for memoir from the Independent Press Awards. The audiobook will be released September 10.

I received the third consecutive writing award for humor from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and Bloggers, and came in second to Pulitzer Prize Winner Anthony Doerr in the Best of Treasure Valley contest for best author.

My short story was selected for a humor anthology titled Laugh Out Loud that features 40 of the best writers from the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop and won a national award for humor. My children’s book, The Magic Potato, won a silver medal writing award from the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards. I spoke at several local writing workshops, at a private retreat in Sun Valley, at my 50th high school reunion, and at a national convention in Missouri. I’m also publishing a children’s book for a friend.

Distribution and Sales Make Frozen Dinners a bestseller.

Frozen Dinners is selling in hardcover edition in local bookstores including Rediscovered Books in Boise and Iconoclast Books in Hailey, on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Walmart, Target.

The eBook is available on Kobo, Apple ITunes, NOOK, Google Play, and Amazon.
The audiobook is on Libro.fm and Audible.


My husband and I moved into a home on a golf course and I sold our home and cabin. I started a massive remodeling project that included new interior paint on ceilings and walls, new carpet, window coverings, lighting, and 1,500-square-feet of hardwood flooring. I started an outdoor landscaping project that featured a saloon built with 100-year-old timbers from a potato cellar, two fire pits, an outdoor kitchen, a 10-foot custom bar, hidden drawers for bottles of booze, and custom furniture. The landscape design included hundreds of pavers, plants, and new trees.

Volunteer activities remain an important part of my life. The trishaw I sponsored for the local chapter of Cycling Without Age is regularly used at area assisted living facilities and brings joy to senior citizens. The annual Ambrose Storytelling Endowment is underway at the University of Idaho and provides an annual workshop with grants for faculty and students, and I was a sponsor for the annual writer’s conference organized by the Idaho Writers Guild.

Heartache that Won’t Heal

So, how can I be melancholy about my life? I didn’t hear from a close family member on my birthday or on any other important event during the year. She estranged me in June of 2018 and refuses to speak to me. Her husband sent me a text message saying never to contact them again. The painful shunning and untrue labels of me being “toxic” seem to come from an amateur therapist’s handbook on how to use the latest psychobabble to destroy people. Unfortunately, this family member is teaching her children to be vindictive and judgmental. These are not the values instilled by our hearty ancestors who walked the Oregon Trail, fought in World War ll, and turned sagebrush into fertile farmland.

To add to the personal drama, my older brother, Tom, died in January at age 68. As I explained in my memoir, we had been estranged for 22 years. His widow didn’t include my name in the published obituary, so I wrote and published my own version with my name added. My parents and both brothers are gone. I pray my grandchildren can break the family tradition of estrangement and alienation.

I know I’ll never again experience such a year of highs, lows, and changes. I’m grateful for my husband, for my son and his family, for my stepson, and for all of my friends. Next year looks promising. I’ll be returning to Ireland to lead writing and storytelling workshops with a group called Wayfinding Women. I hope to write again and focus on positive opportunities.

For this 68th year, I intend to get better with age. As Sinatra once crooned, I think of my life as vintage wine…and it poured sweet and clear. It was a very good year.

Why Audiobook Narrators Can’t Cry

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During this excerpt from my memoir, my voice cracked while I was reading about my mother. I told the sound engineer I would imagine a clown falling out of a clown car so I could regain my composure and finish the chapter.

The audiobook will be released September 10 by Tantor Media..

Here’s Why Narrators Can’t Cry

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In this excerpt from the audiobook of my memoir Frozen Dinners,my emotions cause my voice to falter when I’m reading about my mother. I tell the sound engineer I’m imagining a clown falling out of a clown car so I can regain my composure, start over with the paragraph, and finish the chapter.

The audiobook will be released September 10. Support your local bookstore and order through:

https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781515933793-frozen-dinners

To order through Amazon, click here:

https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Dinners-Memoir-Fractured-Family/dp/B07X61TFB8/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Writing Workshop for Losers

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Writing Workshop for Losers
(Who Can Become Winners)

Do you feel like a failure? You’re not alone. Hundreds of writers have received caustic rejection letters, nasty reviews, and public insults, and some of those came from their family members. However, many people overcome the disappointment to achieve recognition and gather rewards for their talents.

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION.

Losers who want to become winners are invited to attend a productive, empowering workshop on October 4-5, 2019, facilitated by bestselling author Elaine Ambrose in the Saloon near Spurwing in Meridian, Idaho. Through interactive sessions with professional survivors of rejection, participants will discover how to cope with failure and change negative energy into optimistic achievement The cost is only $125, and the agenda includes a Friday night informal reception with area writers, all Saturday sessions, all materials, lunch, snacks, and assignments. The address to the Saloon will be emailed after entrance fee is paid. This workshop is open to beginning and intermediate writers. Space is limited. No refunds after October 1.

The Saloon at Spurwing. Photo by David Day

Friday, October 4
An informal evening reception will include area writers and members of the Idaho Writers Guild.

Saturday, October 5 – Speakers and Workshop Facilitators

Jennifer Basye Sander

New York Times bestselling author, book packager of more than 50 titles, and literary talent Jennifer Basye Sander will describe how her failures led to magnificent success stories. As an acquisitions editor, Jennifer turned down the first book proposal for the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Subsequently, the series sold more than 500 million books. Using creative exercises, Jennifer will lead participants through a cathartic bonfire to purge past failures and emerge energized for future accomplishments. Participants will perform a rejection ritual and toss their fears and rejections into the firepit while imagining the creation of a better, tastier chicken soup for their souls. Jennifer is a former editor for Random House and teaches at the UC Davis Creative Writing Program. She lives in Sacramento, California. View her author page here.

Donna Beckman Tagliaferri
Donna Beckman Tagliaferri writes a popular blog titled My Life from the Bleachers and is the voice of compassion and reason in a vitriolic world of social media. She writes about having great expectations and what to do when hopes and dreams don’t occur or turn out differently. She’ll discuss how we use our challenges, trails, and tests to help and encourage each other and do our most creative work. Her workshop will focus on finding the sunflowers because they face the sun but on cloudy days, they turn toward each other to share energy. Donna lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Click here to find her online blog.

Elaine Ambrose
Elaine Ambrose’s recent bestselling memoir Frozen Dinners describes how she survived a challenging childhood and became a humor writer. To conclude the retreat, she will provide a “Music as Muse” exercise so writers can focus on their negative emotions to produce positive feelings. Follow Elaine on her website.

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION.

Presented by

The Saloon at Spurwing. Photo by David Day.

How to Manage Emotions when Narrating Your Audiobook

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My publisher Brown Books Publishing sold the audio rights to my memoir Frozen Dinners. I’m excited to travel to Mosaic Audio, a professional VIP recording studio near Los Angeles, for a week to read the 55,000-word manuscript. However, I can’t make it through Chapter 11 without crying. Here are the first two paragraphs of that chapter:

Chapter 11
The Book of Leona

“My mother was dying. Her breathing had changed over the past few days; irregular, pausing only to alarm us, then continuing with a raspy rattle. My daughter and I sat beside her bed and held her hand, limp and translucent, as Tennessee Ernie Ford sang about peace in the valley. Gentle hospice workers came silently during her last week to shift her body and dab a damp sponge on her lips. Though they didn’t know her, they treated her with the dignity and grace she deserved.

Outside her room at the assisted living facility, other residents shuffled by, some with walkers, as silent sentinels in the last act of the drama of life. After 87 years, my mother’s body and mind were gone, except for her strong heart. We could do nothing but wait.”

I’ve recorded two other books through Drew Allen Brown in Nampa, Idaho. The first audio recording was for my nonfiction humorous book, Midlife Happy Hour. He taught me how to slow my reading and not to giggle too much. This book was easy to narrate because the stories highlighted amusing anecdotes with friends and included my humorous mishaps.

The second audiobook was my children’s book, Gators & Taters. We had fun with the stories, and I imagined children listening to the narration and following along with the book. Three of the seven stories are in perfect rhyme, and I enjoyed managing the cadence of my reading with the rhythm of the verses. Several of the stories were ones I once told my children, and their names are in the book. Drew helped me upload the two audiobooks to ACX and Audible.com.

I contacted him after I started to practice Frozen Dinners and explained how I struggled with the chapter about my mother. He rearranged his schedule and invited me to read at his studio. We focused on professional projection and discussed how to tone down personal emotions. I returned home to practice his techniques and added a few of my own ideas: toys. I placed finger puppets, a miniature potato head man, a monkey in a car, and clown glasses next to the manuscript as I read. Those props made me smile and helped soothe the angst of the story about my mother’s death.

Mosaic Audio Studio

The Future of Audiobooks

Recording audiobooks can generate a nice income for those who enjoy reading their books and books written by other authors. There are several sites that ask for auditions. I’ll make a four-figure profit from recording Frozen Dinners.

Between 2012 and 2016 the number of audiobook units sold in the USA more than doubled! In 2012, 42.02 million units were sold and in 2016, 89.56 million units were shifted from the digital shelves.

Drew has written a book about how to read an audiobook. Here are some of his tips:

1. Hydrate before recording. Drink more water than normal for a week before going to the studio.
2. Eat before recording. We had to stop once because my stomach was growling.
3. Practice in front of a mirror. Use the record feature on your smart phone to record portions to play back. Most people are surprised at the sound of their voice. Practice wearing headphones that cover your ears.
4. On the day of the recording, avoid any milk or daily products because they coat the throat.
5. Take a dry toothbrush to the studio. During breaks, brush the top of your mouth and inside your cheeks. Those who drink coffee and wine (guilty!) have a tendency to secrete mucus inside their mouth and that causes a “clicking” sound in the microphone.
6. Wear loose, comfortable clothes that don’t bind your torso. Don’t wear dangly jewelry, and bring reading glasses, if necessary. Sit still while reading, and don’t fidget.
7. Use your personality, don’t talk too fast, and allow the listener to regard you as a friend telling a story. Know the correct pronunciation of names, towns, and places.
8. When reading an emotional passage, include a humorous prop as a distraction. If your voice cracks, the technicians will stop recording and you’ll need to start over. You should be able to complete a 5,000-word chapter in an hour.
9. Drink water at every break. Apply lip gloss if your lips are getting dry.
10. When reading an emotional passage, bring the people to life. My memoir quotes my mother several time, so I practiced using her inflections and personality. Then I glanced at the finger puppet and smiled.

One more piece of advice: listen to audiobooks. Critique the style and tempo of the narrator and emulate how they bring the story to life. Then imagine thousands of people listening to you read as they drive across the country, go to work, or relax on their patios. Literally, your audiobook is one in a million.