EA Examiner Exclusive: Interview with Emilie Autumn, about audiobook (6.08.2015)

[Ankh]

http://www.examiner.com/article/emilie-autumn-speaks-about-the-asylum-for-wayward-victorian-girls-audiobook

Good things come to those who wait, and we have got a very special exclusive for all the many plague rats out there, eagerly awaiting the release of Emilie Autumn's audiobook version of her magnum-opus: The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls.

With that said, we hope you enjoy the many insights she provided on the emotionally difficult situation of reliving certain memories, during the process of recording what is a very visceral, complex work of literature. You will also learn more things how involved the whole process is, which should give you a better idea of how intricate and taxing (though ultimately rewarding) this whole process will be for Emilie Autumn.

If anything, our special interview with Emilie Autumn should, above all else, reassure you that the time Emilie Autumn has spent working very hard on this audiobook will be time spent wisely by a very meticulous artist. We hope you enjoy the following interview, and we especially hope you share this far and wide throughout the social media world.

1. EA Examiner: Ever since the re-release of the extended version of your Opheliac album, all Plague Rats have been awaiting the possibility of having a audiobook version of your novel Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. And around that time (2009, to be precise), you often alluded to the eventuality of that happening. In the last year,what prompted you to begin serious work on a project that has always been at the back of your mind, ever since the book's initial release?

EA: When I wrote The Asylum For Wayward Victorian Girls, I hadn?t thought that recording its reading would be necessary, or even necessarily a good idea. I am personally not a lover of audiobooks in general, and I am indeed one of those people who don?t count listening to a book being read by someone else as actually having read that book. It simply is not reading. However! After performing hundreds of book readings across the globe and seeing not only the reactions people have to being read to, but the fun I had in acting out the story, I began to see how marvelous the project could be. Now, I can?t imagine not making an audiobook version of the story, and not in replacement of people reading it themselves, but as a different art form and experience altogether. Finally embarking upon the project was something I began two years ago in secret, simply because I was off tour and felt I had a bit of time to begin something new. I had not imagined the process of recording and editing would take over my life, but worthwhile projects are supposed to take over your life. That?s what life is for.

2. EA Examiner:Throughout your notes made on the audiobook preview page (available for all those Plague Rats, who preordered a copy of the audiobook), you have many fascinating little notes made of things you recalled, while recording certain scenes of the audiobook. Has recording the audiobook made you see the book from an entirely different angle? How does it feel to be slowly making another journey-a deeply emotional one at times- back into something that almost perfectly encapsulates such a momentous, though painful experience in your life?

EA: That?s a brilliant question, and the one that I?ve in fact been asking myself almost daily since the project began. If I?m honest, there have been some extremely rough moments in the recording process, especially since I am doing much of it for a second time (rerecording most of the book due to finding a microphone with enhanced sound quality and wanting to give the very best). Reliving certain scenes and having to speak about them, and convey them as happening in the moment, has most definitely broken my heart and brain a few times, and ruined quite many days/weeks. This is one of the most difficult projects I?ve ever worked on, for that reason. There is a long of anger on this recording, and a lot of tears, and none of them were artificial. There is also a lot of joy and a great deal of love, because, ultimately, it is a story about the journey to becoming united, building a community no matter how strange it may look from the outside, being proud of everything that makes you different, and the journey from being an absolute victim to taking absolutely no shit from anybody. I?m glad to put myself through this, because I get to be a stronger, truer human being at the end of it. I have no regrets about anything in my life. Nothing is wasted.

3. EA Examiner: In your self-published volume of poetry, Your Sugar Sits on Top (one of my personal favorite poetry recordings/anthologies), you included many of your own original violin and harpsichord pieces, as musical accompaniments for the sound recording of your poetry. Is that something you plan on incorporating into the audiobook, perhaps as instrumental interludes, like those that exist on Fight Like a Girl?

EA: Thank you for your kind compliment! I was such a child when I wrote those poems and recorded the music to go along with them, it seems multiple worlds away. It?s lovely to know they are still relevant in some small way. With the audiobook, I had of course thought to add music and sound effects and the like, and then decided to leave it very stark, and have the voices be everything. Because the book is so very lengthy, even one character?s voice changes drastically over the duration of the audiobook, and I?d like people to focus very closely on that, with no distraction.
I?d like to record another audiobook of the new edition of The Asylum? book to be released next year, as it will be quite different, and would then like to do a proper cast recording with each character being performed by a different person, and music and effects added. It would be a complete movie experience without the picture.

4 EA Examiner:Around the time your book was released, you did a string of book readings in Europe, did you ever think of doing the same, to celebrate the release of the audiobook, once it is released?

EA: Yes, doing those readings was a turning point in my life, especially as I did some before the actual book was even available. I remember being on a huge stage in a theatre in Germany and holding the only copy of the book in existence in my hands, the test copy sent to me by the printer. I would hold it up and try to show the pictures to the audience sitting in the back rows, but I knew they could not have any idea what was truly between the covers. I had a vague suspicion that, once this book was in everybody?s hands, my whole world would change, but I had no idea to what degree this would be true.
Regarding giving readings specifically to celebrate the audiobook, this could possibly happen, but the truth is that there are so many things going on right now in the world of The Asylum... book that I can?t yet speak about, and there may be some even bigger news to celebrate with a book reading tour in the coming year.

5. EA Examiner:For all the Plague Rats awaiting this release with bated breath, do you have a message for them?

EA: I?d simply like to thank you all from the bottom of my little ratty heart for your incredible kindness and patience in tolerating the delay. I promise you that it will be worth it, and I also promise you that there will be some extremely important additions and alterations to the audiobook that only you will soon be in possession of. Each new version of the book has come with significant changes, and the audiobook is no exception. In fact, there is a game changing surprise being included, and it is, without a doubt, the last thing you?ll ever see coming?I, myself, am still in shock.

6. EA Examiner: Knowing the top-notch quality of your music, tea, etc., fans can undoubtedly be reassured that the wait will be worth it in the end. What type of teas have you been drinking throughout the process of recording the audiobook?

EA: Throughout the recording I?ve actually been drinking teas to correspond to the characters, and I think you?ll hear it in the end. For Emily, it?s been her signature Darjeeling, which may be sold out at the moment on The Asylum Emporium website, but will be back shortly. Emilie?s parts were recorded with her favorite Japanese sencha. Madame Mournington has been overdosing on her herbal coffee blend brewed very, very strongly, and Dr. Stockill has been staying up all night with ginseng and smokey Lapsang Souchong (soon to be available to all, the Doctor is perfecting the blend in his lab at the moment). Sir Edward has been true to his chamomile orange, and Basil has been sneaking whiskey?I can smell it on his whiskers...

Thank you so much, Emilie Autumn, for taking the time to offer your thoughts on some of these questions, concerning the forthcoming release of the Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls audiobook.

[Patyczek]

Your Sugar Sits on Top

Hmm?

[Ankh]

Ja tylko przekopiowałam tekst ze strony :3

[Patyczek]

Domyślam się, ale przez chwilę serio nie wiedziałam, czy to jakaś inna rzecz niż YSSU

[Jazzmin]

I was such a child when I wrote those poems and recorded the music to go along with them, it seems multiple worlds away. It?s lovely to know they are still relevant in some small way.

Hm, jak tylko to przeczytałam, przyszła mi do głowy taka trochę irrelewantna myśl: gdyby Emilka napisała i wydała teraz kolejny tomik, jak bardzo i w jaki sposób różniłby się od YSSU?