About Us

Dealing with the challenges of today requires artists who bring different perspectives and are willing to take risks. The Professional Audiobook Narrators Association emerged out of a pursuit to inspire and support the community, and a desire for actions to speak louder than words. Established in 2021, we’re an organization driven by progressive ideas, bold actions, and a strong foundation of support. Contact us to learn more and get involved.

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About: About Us

About: Meet the Team

Committees

At PANA, our top priority is to achieve results for the narrator community, and we know that our success depends on the quality of our campaigns and partnerships. Our approach is to build strategic networks and promote programs that will help advance our work. Learn more about the activities we’re passionate about and get in touch with us to see how you can get involved.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

The Advocacy Committee is in charge of narrator advocacy, including publicity campaigns to raise awareness in the audiobook-listening public and the creation of deeper connections with authors/producers/publishers.

CELEBRATING EACH OTHER

The PANA Recognitions Committee honors the professionals who advance the craft of human audiobook production. The committee creates and fosters programs celebrating the talented people who narrate, edit, and help bring audiobooks to life.

COORDINATING OUR VOICES

The Communications/Media Committee is in charge of coordinating, managing, and implementing our website and social media strategy, as well as keeping all members updated with the activities and efforts of the association.

DOING WHAT'S NEEDED

While anti-racism is every member’s individual privilege and responsibility, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee manages additional efforts from mentorship opportunities to BIPOC support groups to casting advocacy.

GROWING AS ARTISTS

From classes and workshops to certification opportunities, the Education Committee continually assesses the needs of the association and helps to provide and coordinate opportunities for growth, edification, and connection.

CONNECTING WITH EACH OTHER

The Events Committee conceives, manages, and executes a variety of local and national events, including meet-ups, workshops, retreats, and conferences, to enable narrators to support and learn from one another.

MEETING NEEDS

Making sure your voice matters, the Membership Committee handles all of the aspects of membership, including welcoming and orienting new members and connecting with, supporting, and listening to veteran members.

GATHERING SUPPORT

The Sponsorships Committee is in charge of sourcing, coordinating, and managing relationships with organizations and entities looking to support our network of audiobook narrators.

Board of Directors and Administration

Rhett Samuel Price, Chair, Board of Directors

Rhett Samuel Price is an Audie Finalist who is described by acquaintances as “decent, fair, caring and educated.” AudioFile Magazine says, “His sonorous voice takes the listener on a unique historical journey” and “Rhett Samuel Price offers a solid narration of the power of education.” Rhett has always loved telling stories since his childhood days spending weekends at the Coskey family home in Encino CA, thrilling his friends, Kevin, Jill and Jay with his retelling of “The Chicken Heart That Ate New York City”, “I Started Out As A Child”, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” myriad ghost stories and other thrilling tales. Watching the faces of his friends around the campfire is the main reason Rhett loves telling stories, especially Horror and Thrillers.

While attending USC to attain his BS in Public Policy and Management, he started voicework as an announcer for the baseball team and the men’s and women’s volleyball teams. Rhett decided to serve the community by becoming a California Highway Patrolman. With 22 years as a motorcycle officer and motorcycle Sergeant among other positions within the Department, he possesses an intimate knowledge of law enforcement, courtroom policies & procedures while serving with one of California’s and the world’s most distinguished law enforcement agencies. During this time, he began his 7-year run as the traffic reporter for KABC TV channel 7 Los Angeles and for numerous English and Spanish radio stations with one of the highest “Q” ratings for Los Angeles reporters.

Rhett currently serves as a Commissioner for the Los Angeles County Highway Safety Commission having been appointed by then, now former, 2nd District Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke, continuing his tenure with former 2nd District Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas, and now serving 2nd District Supervisor Holly Mitchell. During his time as a Commissioner, Rhett has Chaired the Highway Safety Commission and was appointed by unanimous vote by the LA County Board of Supervisors to Chair the then newly formed Los Angeles County Pedestrian Highway Safety Task Force comprised of myriad city, and county agencies including police, fire, Departments of Public Works and School Boards. Rhett has also volunteered his time serving non-profit agencies like the “Los Angeles Boys and Girls Club” and numerous First A.M.E. Church groups.

Even with this busy 1st career, Rhett has found time to enjoy Scuba Diving and is a certified Divemaster for NAUI, having completed more than 3,500+ dives around the world while feeding moray eels out of the palm of his hand. Rhett began narrating audiobooks after taking a class with Pat Fraley and Scott Brick and has never looked back. Having been raised by a single mother, whose business was mainly supported by the Jewish community and the early LGBTQ community and was a supporter of equal rights before it was fashionable, Rhett has been a longtime supporter of equal rights and inclusion for all.

Hillary Huber, Board of Directors

Multiple Audie Finalist, Earphone Awards and SOVAS winner, Hillary Huber has
narrated over 600 audiobooks spanning a variety of genres. In addition to narrating,
Hillary also directs audiobooks, coaches new narrators and produces audiobook demos. She has a BA in English Literature and is a voracious reader and listener of audiobooks. Hillary splits her time between Santa Monica and NY. Most of that time is spent in a small 4x5 cell… er booth.

Soneela Nankani, Board of Directors

Soneela is an award-winning narrator with 350 titles in many different genres including Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi and Nonfiction. She has garnered 16 Earphone awards, Audie and SOVAS nominations and was recently awarded AudioFile magazine’s Golden Voice Lifetime Achievement Honor. Her audiobooks have been featured in Best Audiobooks lists by AudioFile Magazine (2016, 2019, 2020) and The Washington Post (2018, 2020). Additionally, she is a coach and a mentor who is passionate about lifting up South Asian and Black voices and supporting cross-cultural engagement as part of her work both in and out of the studio.

Dominique Franceschi, Board of Directors

Dominique Franceschi-Cybulski (or just Dom) was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia. She studied Performing Arts throughout high school before completing the 4-year Integrated Musical Theater program at the MISI Performing Arts Academy. She then relocated to the Bay Area to continue her training, gaining her Associate of Arts in Dance and Communication Studies.

Afterwards, Dominique moved to Los Angeles to pursue her BFA in Performing Arts. On stage, she voiced characters from the operatic Wardrobe from “The Beauty and the Beast”, to the foxy Velma Kelly from “Chicago”, as well as the wise Sarabi from “The Lion King”. One of her passions is to contribute in breaking the stereotype for South Americans in the world. Through her work she has achieved recognition among her peers, and she even has 4 Guinness World Records for working on diversity projects.

In her free time, Dominique enjoys playing video games (recent games include Dragon Age: Inquisition, Animal Crossing and Genshin Impact), finding single shot scenes in movies, reading (both in and out of the booth), and seeing live performances of all kinds. Some of her recent favorites are Carlos Vives and John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl!

Robin Miles, Board of Directors

Actor/Director, Robin Miles, has garnered top honors, including the Audible Hall of Fame, Booklist Voice of the Year, and Audiofile’s Golden Voice, with over 40 Best of the Year and Earphones awards. Robin was 2010 Grammy finalist for directing The Lincoln Douglas Debates. Her chameleon-like acting ability wins accolades for its nuance, variety & depth, and spans over 400+ audiobooks in multiple genres including; Hidden Figures, Hugo winners The Fifth Season Trilogy (NK Jemisin), Binti (Nnedi Okorafor), and The Mueller Report, documentary films, museum installations, and commercials. Her clients include every major US publisher, NYC’s American Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian, Chicago Art Institute, and Seattle Art Museum. Her acting credits include Broadway’s The Violet Hour, Law & Order, several regional theater classics and premiers, and the coveted Collected Shorts from Symphony Space/NPR Radio. She attended Yale University, Yale School of Drama, the British American Drama Academie, studied with visionary, Uta Hagen. She owns Voxpertise, Inc. production & training studio, and teaches Acting at Pace University in New York City, and the University of California, San Diego.

Vikas Adam, Board of Directors

In addition to the over 400 genre hopping audiobooks Vikas Adam has recorded, he's an actor, director, and faculty at the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television. His audiobook catalog includes prominent works from diverse authors including Salman Rushdie, Paulo Coelho, C. Robert Cargill, Andy Warhol, Yann Martel, and youtube sensations Rhett and Link. In addition to audiobooks, he records for Audm/NYT and Apple News and co-hosts “Ask An Audiobook Pro” on Clubhouse with Hillary Huber. Vikas has won the Audie Award, a SOVAS award, 15+ Earphones awards, is on several “Best of the Year” lists and has the distinction of being an inaugural inductee into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame. Twitter/Instagram/Clubhouse: @vikasadam

Helen Lloyd, Board of Directors

Helen Lloyd's background is acting. She trained at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and spent fifteen years as a professional actor, mainly in theatre. Highlights include playing at the National Theatre at the Old Vic in ‘The Alchemist’ and in Jonathan Miller’s production of King Lear’ with Michael Hordern, playing the title role in ‘Miss Julie’ at the Roundhouse Studio and Mollie Ralston, the female lead in year 29 of ‘The Mousetrap’ at St Martin’s Theatre in London.

In the early 1980s Helen moved into television as a presenter and continuity announcer for ITV Central —and recorded her first audiobooks — thankfully no longer available! Personal reinvention became a necessity as by now she had a growing family, so she stepped behind the camera, becoming a producer and director of factual programmes while at the same time building a freelance career as a voice actor – which turned out to be a very smart move! Twenty-three years later, she took redundancy and the rest is history.

Helen has recorded 150 audiobooks to date, all but five recorded in her own studio. She records for Harper Collins, Penguin Random House and Audible Studios in both the US and the UK; for Blackstone, Disney Publications, Macmillan Audio, Brilliance Audiobooks, Hachette, Dreamscape, Findaway, and Spoken Realms in the US; and for UK imprints including Bonnier, Rosa, Lamplight Audio, Whole Story Audiobooks, Ukemi Audiobooks, Ulverscroft, Isis and Quercus. She also produces and directs audiobooks independently and in association with Raconteurs Audio LLP.

Three Earphone Awards, and an Audie nomination later, and having trained all of BeeAudio’s UK based narrators when they first opened up in the UK in 2012, Helen felt confident that she could garner fifty years’ of knowledge and experience into a bespoke, meaningful coaching course for audiobook narrators, and she has been running this successfully since 2018. Helen coaches regularly for Voiceover Kickstart, and has been ‘A Professional Ear’ with The Audiobook Publishers’ Association. Working independently, she coaches and directs experienced narrators and actors, and works with authors who are narrating their own books.

Julia Whelan, Board of Directors

Julia Whelan is a writer, lifelong actor, and award-winning audiobook narrator of over 500 titles across all genres. In addition to being named a Golden Voice by AudioFile Magazine, she won the 2019 Best Female Narrator Audie for Tara Westover's Educated. Her performance of her own debut novel, the international bestseller My Oxford Year, garnered a Society of Voice Arts award. She is also a Grammy-nominated audiobook director, a former writing tutor, a half-decent amateur baker, and a certified tea sommelier. Her second novel, Thank You For Listening, a romcom set in the world of audiobooks, published in 2022.

Stacey Glemboski, Board of Directors

Stacey Glemboski is proud to be a full time narrator, and she enjoys remote home studio recording. Professionally, she has enjoyed working both with publishers and directly with authors, as many of us have. Personally, she values respect, likes non-work days, mountain views, dogs, tennis matches, and much more.

Emily Ellet, Co-Founder, Treasurer, & Executive Officer

Emily Ellet (she/her) is an award-winning actor based in Denver. She earned her BA in Acting and has 18+ years of experience working in theatre, Off-Broadway musical theatre, cabaret, cruise ships, and audiobook narration. Some of her favorite performances include Joyce/Isabella Bird in Top Girls, Mary in The 12 Dates of Christmas, the winner of the last-ever MetroStar cabaret competition, and her award-nominated solo show Uncharted. Emily loves to narrate YA Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Rom-Coms, and Parenting/Psychology Nonfiction.

Although she misses rollerblading her commutes after 10 years in NYC, Emily is delighted to finally be breathing in the pine-tinged air while hiking the Colorado mountains. She is a passionate foster mom to teen girls, which underpins her love of therapy and neuroscience. You can often find her baking her mom’s secret-recipe chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, giggling at her Zoom-bombing cats Graham and Sam, and dancing to K-pop as a card-carrying BTS ARMY fan club member.

Veronica Giguere, Secretary

Veronica Giguere (V.) is a storyteller of the spoken and written word who became an audiobook narrator through the strange intersection of higher education, fanfiction, and MMORPGs. She narrates across genres, but her favorites are science fiction and fantasy. With her superpower of snark and appreciation of the author’s craft, Veronica lends empathy, intelligence, and wit to every project.

Her passion for science and innovation shines in her roles as audiobook narrator, science fiction author, podcast producer, and forever-geeky mom. According to her fellow Secret World Chronicle coauthors, she writes about metahumans battling alien fascists in modern-day Atlanta and delights in finding new ways to torment their darlings. According to her kids, she sings loudly to embarrassing 90s songs in the car during her endless momtaxi drives between home, school, and the bowling alley. According to her husband, she is addicted to coffee and crochet. And according to her three cats, she is probably late to feed them dinner.