Compelling, Believable Voices of the Black Diaspora
Bio. Studio. Details.
Janina has recorded more than 400 titles through traditional audiobook publishers including Blackstone, Simon & Schuster, Dreamscape, Tantor, and Audible, as well independent production platforms, such as ACX and Findaway. She has been featured in the New York Times, Audiofile and ACX (Audible’s Audiobook Creation Exchange). Janina excels at portraying compelling believable characters and voices of African Americans, and other people of the English-speaking African diaspora (the West Indies, West and South Africa).
“I love to narrate audiobooks of all kinds, but my passion is to voice BIPOC stories, messages, and writers, and champion humanist and yogic principles.”
In addition, Janina narrates long-format journalism (via AUDM and Apple News), eLearning, audio description and meditation.
AWARDS/ACCOLADES
In 2022 The Final Revival of Opal and Nev won the Audie award for Best Fiction. Janina portrayed the voice of Sunny, the lead character, who connects the entire storyline, in that multi-narrator audiobook. Janina’s audiobook projects have garnered seven Audie award finalist nominations, eight Earphones awards and two SOVAS (Society of Voice Arts and Sciences) award nominations.
BOOTH
Janina records in a custom-built booth lined in Auralex foam. She uses a Neumann TLM 103 microphone with pop filter, and a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 interface. Her DAW of choice is Adobe Audition.
BACKGROUND AND TRAINING
Janina Edwards is a native of Chicago, IL, and graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Acting Program. She recorded her first audiobooks in the late 1980s for the American Foundation for the Blind Talking Books program.
She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA and is active with the Audio Publishers Association Diversity Mentoring program.
ACCENTS AND DIALECTS
Janina enjoys listening to the myriad ways that people talk. She grew up hearing African American people in Chicago, and the threads of the south mixed into their voices. While living in New York City for eleven years, she soaked up the language and rhythms of African and West Indian people in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights neighborhoods. She has lived in Atlanta for the past twenty-four years, swimming in the swagger and sway of the south.
While living in New York City, Janina studied French at Alliance Française and took Spanish lessons at The New School (NYC). Most recently she has studied African accents with PJ Ochlan (Dr. Dialect), and Beth McGuire (Yale University School of Drama, and Juilliard, and Black Panther movie Vocal Coach).
ECLECTIC INTERESTS
Janina’s background includes five years in the New York and Chicago Santeria communities where she was initiated to Oya. She is a former dancer (African Folkloric, Modern, and Belly Dance), and former amateur long-distance runner (completing the Chicago Marathon twice and the Georgia Half Marathon three times). Janina was the Props Manager for the Tony Award winning Alliance Theatre, the southeast’s largest regional theatre, for five years. She left that job to start her own company (JustWrite! Communications & Proposals, dba janinaspeaksvoumes). Janina is a certified yoga instructor (300 hours), specializing in Restorative Yoga. She is active with Kashi Atlanta Urban Yoga Ashram. She taught at Kashi and volunteered as a yoga teacher at the DeKalb County jail and taught at an addiction recovery center. She also sings ‘kirtan’ and plays the violin. Janina loves the outdoors and is an avid hiker and kayaker, and a volunteer leader with Outdoor Afro, a national non-profit that creates nature-based events for black people.
WRITING
For fifteen years, Janina made her living as a successful professional grant proposal writer working with arts non-profits in Atlanta-including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Theatrical Outfit, Atlanta Ballet, and more.
Janina’s literary writing focuses on fiction, and non-fiction personal essays, and memoir pieces. Her memoir pieces often explore her experiences as a caregiver for her parents, surviving domestic abuse, and her joyful experiences in the outdoors.
For an example of Janina’s writing check out her blog, and this published piece for the National Parks Service.
My Videos
From the Page to Your Ears
Public Library System
Happy Clients
