Jessica Threet (Actor/Audiobook Narrator) - JordanCon Interview #1

We’re recording live from JordanCon, surrounded by the hum of readers, creators, and pure convention chaos, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our guest is Jessica Threet, a voice actor, singer, and audiobook narrator with 500+ titles who knows exactly how a single voice can pull you deeper into a story than you thought possible.

We talk about the craft behind audiobook narration and voice acting: why performing on stage isn’t the same as performing into a microphone, how mic technique changes everything, and what it really takes to deliver just a few finished hours of audio. Jessica shares how she stays “on” for long sessions, how she tracks character voices with notes and sound clips, and why certain accent combinations require a mental gear shift to keep performances clean and believable.

We also get into the heart of the work. Jessica explains how she connects to characters through psychology, even when their experiences are nothing like her own, and why some series endings leave her openly sobbing in the booth. Along the way, she shouts out favorite projects, highlights the value of on-page representation in fantasy and cozy stories, and teases what’s next including Red Rising work, the Natural Magic series, Unserious, and a LitRPG release. You’ll even hear the story of a booth mishap that accidentally became a forever “Easter egg” on Audible.

If you love audiobooks, narration, fantasy, romantasy, and the behind-the-scenes reality of storytelling, hit play and join us in the noise. Subscribe, share this with an audiobook friend, and leave a review with your favorite narrator pick.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Welcome back. Today's episode is a little different and honestly a lot of fun. We're coming to you live from the chaos, the energy, and the absolute magic of JordanCon. So if you hear a little background noise, voices, laughter, the hum of a hundred passionate readers and creators all in one place, that's because we're right in the middle of it. No studio, no script, just real on-the-spot conversations with some incredible voices in the world of storytelling. And we're kicking things off strong.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Today we have the chance to sit down with the immensely talented voice actor and audiobook narrator Jessica Threte. Someone who quite literally brings stories to life. If you've ever been completely pulled into a book because of the voice guiding you through it, you already know how powerful that kind of artistry is. This is one of those rare opportunities to talk not just about stories, but about the people who shape how we experience them. So let's lean into the moment, embrace the noise, and get into it. Jessica, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and uh you know give the kind of basic introduction you'd like to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Of course. Um so yes, I am Jessica Three. I am, as you've said, a singer, dancer, actor, voice actor, narrator, multi-hyphenant, whatever. Um I've been working in the industry for about six years now, and I've narrated over 500 titles, and yeah, just love to bring stories to life. I would say I'm a storyteller if I were to condense the love of my life.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Okay, so I have to ask this because you do so many things. Yeah. Do you have a favorite thing? Because it seems like you're like the jack of all trades. So what is your what is your favorite thing that you do out of those things?

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Oh my gosh. Well, um, I grew up loving musical theater. So that is my one true love of my life. My goal in life is to be on Broadway, uh, more than anything. So I'd probably say like that kind of avenue of singing, dancing, acting. But I really have fallen deeply in love with narrating, and I didn't even realize it was going to be a um career that is sustainable and an actual thing you can pursue. And it came into my lap at the perfect time right before the pandemic, and it's just blasted off since then because readership since the pandemic has just exploded.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so because my daughter is a musical theater nerd, what is your favorite musical?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Oh, that is so hard. I would say currently playing on Broadway, because I'll go with that route. Um, currently playing on Broadway, I really would love to be in Hades Town or Wicked.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Oh, okay, yes, absolutely.

Bringing Songs To Audiobooks

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Those two are probably my tops right now. And then Six. Six is also another one that's currently playing that I'm obsessed with right now. Yeah. But I love it. It's so hard to pick just one because it's like different genres, different eras of musical theater. There's just so many good ones to offer, you know?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

And I I caught you on a karaoke night singing um popular. Yeah, yeah. And you did such a good job, you did such a good job. And one of the things that I love about listening to you narrate a book is so many times when there's supposed to be a song in the narration, it's sort of just like poetry read because a lot of narrators just can't sing, and you actually come up with a whole like tune and everything and make it into a really a real song.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Thank you, thank you. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

And you're doing a you do a great job. So, what was then your favorite musical that you've ever been in?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Ooh, been in oh gosh. Um I would either say Rent. I got to do with a professional theater per um company in North Carolina called Flat Rock Playhouse. I got to play Maureen, which is a character that is set up to be hated. She's not in, she you don't really see her until like the end of Act One. And she's set up as like this horrible human being. So it's your job as that character to figure out how to make yourself likable. And that's a very hard task to put on. And I actually had um five different people after the show come up to me and go, I've seen this show on Broadway, I've seen it touring, and you're the first Maureen I actually liked. And I was like, Thank you, I appreciate that. So I'd probably say that, or um, I got to play Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd, my senior year of college. And that was so much fun. And like, give me 10 more years, but I want to play her again.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

That that's a role right there. Yeah, that is.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

That was so much fun. And Sondheim is such a complicated composer that I am obsessed with.

First Narration Jobs And The Pivot

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I think the music in that is so difficult. Yeah. So if you pulled that off, that's just incredible. So much fun. Well, you said narration kind of fell in your lap. What is the first narration you did as far as audiobooks?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

So um back in late 2018, 2019, I had a colleague of mine that I went to college with. We had kept in touch over the years, um, reach out to me and goes, Hey, I've been narrating for like a year and a half. Have you ever considered doing this? And I've said, No, this is the thing you can do. And he kind of taught me the ropes. And he had been working with an author via Reddit who wanted a female narrator. And it is this book that I don't even think it exists anymore online. Um, because I think the author like took it off. But it was called like the sands of our gorm. No, that's not right. It's like the sands of something with an A. I cannot for the life of me remember now. But that was the first title I ever did. And then a few months later, we did this like dark, dark mafia romance called Um The Beauty or His Beauty, Her Beast kind of thing. Yeah. And it is dark. And so, like, that was like the second thing we did. And then from there, it kind of just like snowballed and gained traction right around the pandemic to where when I got the pandemic, I was doing it full time and was able to sustain myself through all of that great chaos that happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

I feel like a lot of people like reinvented themselves during the pandemic in some way because we all had to. So that's just really incredible that you kind of found that. Yeah, 1000%.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

The thing that I could do at home by myself.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Right. Yeah. And find that purpose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

What what is the for you the biggest difference then between acting on stage versus doing audio narration? Like, is it the same kind of technique or do you have to change it up a bit and think of it differently?

SPEAKER_02 7:07

I think the biggest difference is is your playability. When you're on a stage, you have to play to the back row because you have to make sure that the person the farthest seat away from you is getting just of just as good of a show as the person that's sitting in the front row and can see literally every pore in your face. Versus when you're in a booth by yourself, you have to make it a little more intimate because your narrate, your listener is in their ears. So you are a little closer to the mic. You don't you project for like big battle scenes and things like that, but when you're having intimate moments, you're having a quiet moment, you do want to have that sense of intimacy that you have when you're having a conversation with people. So I think that there's a mic technique that comes into it, and there's also a uh vocal control that you have to have with your voice to be sustainable, whether you're having an intimate whispery scene or a loud battle scene where you're getting hacked to pieces by a sword.

What Audiobook Work Really Takes

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Right, right. So tone is really important. So I don't think a lot of people realize what goes into really making an audiobook and doing narration. So can you share a little bit more of that? You're talking about mic technique, you're talking about kind of the voice, but what kind of work is it more difficult than just acting on stage in your mind? I would say that yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

So uh for a lot of other acting things, you don't really have to be what I would say is quote unquote on until you're on the stage or you're actually filming the scene. When you're rehearsing, you don't have to go a hundred percent. Right. But from the moment you press record in an audio booth, you have to be like completely in the story and immersed. Right. Because uh a reader can tell when you're not fully in the like in the story with you. And if you disappear or you disassociate, they will know. So you having to be on consistently for a solid hour or however long the chapter is before you can go, okay, now it's break time. All right, take a sip of water. Right. Um, but depending on how many finished hours you do a day, I think I do around three to three and a half, sometimes four, depending on if I'm behind on my work or whatever, if I have a lot of projects on my plate. Um, which takes about like eight to ten hours of like being on and recording, like between editing, between um mistakes that you make, between like there's always inevitably like, I don't know how I say that word, having to Google like a word that you've only ever read before. Yeah. Um, so I would say, like, yeah, I do around like four hours of finished audio. So having to be on and in a performance type mode for almost eight hours is a lot more difficult than being on a stage for two and a half hours when you're not really on the stage for probably that entire time. You have a scene where you get to be off stage. Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

At least whereas you have to be on this entire time.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Because you're creating the world. You are the world. It's not you're just an actor or a character in the show. You're the entire world. You are the set, you are the director, you are the choreographer every of it.

Character Lists And Accent Control

SPEAKER_01 10:13

All of it.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

When when you're recording a scene where you're voicing maybe multiple characters in the scene, do you like just roll with it and switch between those voices, or do you like have to stop and kind of go, no, I gotta say it this way instead?

Solo Narration Versus Multicast

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Um, I think for the most part, I'm able to go back to back to back if I know uh like if I remember all the characters. Um, sometimes if you know I'm in a scene where there's 12 people talking back and forth, my brain will go, okay, which one's Travis again? Okay, and I always have like a Google spreadsheet that I have that has a list of all my characters. It's like their name, a little bit about them, what voice I use, and then usually a link to a sound bite so I can hear the voice. So that way I can kind of like keep track of everything as I go. Um, but if it's like a smaller amount of people in the scene, I can usually go back to back to back. There's also a couple different accents where I'm like, if I have to, if suddenly the two, these two accents are back to back with each other, I'm like, okay, I have to take a second because otherwise these accents are gonna bleed. Because going back and forth between Irish and Scottish, they're just similar enough, but just different enough to where your brain goes, wait, hold on, I gotta change my brain. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

And we've heard you do that too. Uh I mean I think we're mostly familiar with your work in Halfling Harvest and Thereby Dragons here, uh, which is kind of set up to be there's a male and your uh a male uh narrator as well as you. And so do you then kind of get your script or do you read it straight from the book or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Um, usually the the script is I I've worked with different scenarios where the script has been just I have to go through and find my lines and so I'm getting the context. I've had situations where they'll highlight my lines, so I just kind of read maybe the sentence before or after, um, just to try and get the context of that. I have situations like when I work with Sound Do Theater, they work with Ableton Live. So what they usually do is have them the main narrative the main narrator will go through and record every single bit of the book, and then you go back through and they have like different tracks as they go through, and you will find your track and you will record your lines over that. So you find your track or your lines in their Google spreadsheet version of the script, and you record your lines. There's so many weird different scenarios depending on the client, depending on the program they're using. It's interesting. Yeah. Okay.

unknown 12:36

Try.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Uh so I haven't heard you actually do a book where you had to do just everything. All the mail characters. Have you done that?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

I've done so many. I mean, and I would say that probably a good like 60% of my work is either multicast or um duet or dual, but I have done a lot of books also where I've just been the solo narrator as well.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

And how do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_02 12:57

I have fun. I have fun with it. Like I think that every storytelling, no matter what way the author or the company wants it to be done, is perfectly valid. And I think they all have their own special, unique thing. Getting to be the entire world, playing all the male, female monsters is a lot of fun. Sometimes it's nice to sit back and go, I just have to do all the feminine characters. This is great. Um, and then sometimes just being one character in the book in a multicast is also really fun because then you can really sink your teeth into who that one character is and what that means for you in your performance. So I think they're all kind of valid and fun in different ways and have present their own unique challenges as you go through the script.

Acting With Psychology And Empathy

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Okay, so I'm gonna ask you another maybe hard question, maybe it'll rack your brain a little bit. But when it comes to your audiobooks, I would have to imagine that there are times where you get a project where maybe it's more difficult for you to connect with the character, and then there are times maybe where you've gotten a project where you really connect with the character. So can you think of one where you just had a really difficult time connecting with the piece? And then can you think of your favorite one that you've done where you just really connected with the story and a particular character that resonated with you?

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Yeah. So I think it's hard to say a character that I haven't connected with because I always go through and I find something. Right. One thing about them, at least that I go, okay, I maybe don't understand this exactly, but I've had a similar situation where I can pull from this experience in order to make it believable and whatnot. Um, there's been like a couple where I'm like, I have no idea what it is to be a an assassin um that like has kind of become a sociopath in their own way because of the trauma they've lived through their life. I don't know what that experience is like, but I read their backstory and I read their um, you know, the things that they have to talk about. And I just kind of sit there and go, okay, I maybe don't understand this part of it, but I can pull from this. Um but there's also been, yeah, a couple of books that I have loved where I'm just like, I love everything about this character and I feel like so connected. There's one that I feel like I shouldn't connect with that I'm about to be doing, where I'm playing a sociopathic serial killer.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

That is very similar to like Harley Quinn. Oh, that's cool. Oh, ways.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Oh, I would have fun with that too.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

And so I was like, okay, listen, I'm not nothing like this character, but I'm so pumped to play this character. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

I bet a lot of actors really do like to get inside the mind of it.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah, I think like I think either way, I've always been very interested in psychology. Um, if I wasn't an actor, I probably would have gone into forensic psychology. Um, because I just find the human mind so fascinating. And I think that from the classes I took on psychology, I take that into my acting and figure out like how do these particular characters work and what makes them tick. And that's how what I try to bring to every character, no matter if they have two lines and or they're just the person who's one of the love interests, or they're a badass warrior princess woman who bonds to a dragon.

Favorite Books And On-Page Representation

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Right, absolutely. Okay, as far as your recording so far, audiobook-wise, what is the favorite one you've done, or your character that you've just loved voicing? You thought, oh my goodness, I connect with this character.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

That's really hard because there's been so many really, really good characters that I've had the opportunity to play. Um, I would say probably I've really enjoyed the characters that S.L. Rowland has crafted for his Tales of Adrias.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

I was wanting you to say that.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

I really I think he does such a great job, and I've mentioned this before on other like platforms and stuff. I really love the fact that he can take mundane situations and bring the heart to things, and he really like grasps emotions in a way that I feel like some authors don't, like grief and family and that first love. And I think he really captures just these intimate moments that maybe we kind of take for granted sometimes, um, and captures them in such a beautiful way. So I really love that. Um, I was very fortunate to do the Tomes and T series by Rebecca Thorne, which is another cozy type story, and that was a lot of fun as well because it was uh cozy, but it had a lot of higher stakes than a lot of other cozyes that you get to, and those characters were also a blast to do, and getting to um have representation in that book of non-binary, trans, and sapphic romance and things like that. I thought those were really cool to have as a representation in the main literary sphere. Um, and then I also got to do, I'm currently doing um the Red Rising series with uh graphic audio, and I get to play Adelantia or Adelantia, I can't remember how to pronounce her name, but she's like one of the big bads of the arcs of the stories, and I think she is so much fun because she's so evil, and I'm like, I'm nothing like this character, but I am living for playing this evil character.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

That's awesome. I can't wait for that. That is wonderful. I'm excited about that. Yeah.

Getting Emotionally Wrecked By Stories

SPEAKER_03 18:06

So and all you work in you've had to have done a book that's just either spoken directly to you or emotionally wrecked you by the ends. Oh my god, yeah.

Cold Reads And Spoiler Boundaries

SPEAKER_02 18:16

So many of my books wreck me. I think I get sometimes too invested in my characters, and especially like when I know it's the last book in the series, like I will just sob uncontrollably. Um, I work on the Broken Prophecy series with Anna Applegate and Helen uh D'Amico, and it's like a romanticy novel, and I just finished the last one of that. But there's like moments in that last book where you don't think people are gonna live that are your favorite characters, people that are favorite characters die, and I was just like buckets of crying. There's a video that I will be posting when it releases on TikTok of me not being able to get through a scene because I'm breaking down sobbing, and I was live on TikTok doing it, and both of the authors were there, and I was like, Y'all are killing me right now in camp. Like, I was just buckets of water were pouring from my face. It was so it was heart-wrenching. So I I laugh hysterically with my characters, I cry hysterically with my characters because I mean, in a way, they kind of are my babies, like in the way that an author's works are their children. I feel like when you get to bring a story to life, these characters that you are become a part of you and you get invested in what happens to them. And so when you have to say goodbye to them, either because they die or the series is ending, it's hard. It is hard sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Uh so I take it you're not into spoiling it for yourself then.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Oh no, I don't. No, I do not let myself be spoiled. I ask, I specifically try to talk to my authors prior to the book, just to be like, hey, are there any spoilers that I need to know in order to narrate this for you in a good way? Are there pronunciations you need for your made-up words? Can you send me an audiophile of those things? Um, are there any major plot twists that are gonna happen later in the books, like in the series, that I might need to know at book one? Like, hey, Jim Bob here. He seems like a really cool guy for the first three books, but he's gonna end up being the main bad guy at the end. So, okay, what can I inform in my voice that maybe can the foreshadowshadows? Yeah. Um, in the way it kind of like Snape was in Harry Potter, everyone thought he was the bad guy, but he ends up being like one of the people that like helps. Um just I ask the author as many questions as I can and get as much information from that. But I usually am doing a skin through at most of the book before I read it, and most of the rest of the book is like a cold read.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Yeah. I wouldn't recommend doing that for anyone else, but that is how my process works. Everybody that is a narrator has to find their own process and how they do things. I found out that Ray Porter does the same thing, and I was like, hey, my buddy, I get you. That's cool.

The Blooper Audible Never Fixed

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, that's cool. Well, we're probably almost about to wrap up, but do you have a you probably have more questions? I want to ask, I want to ask a funny question. Okay. Do you have a funny mishap that's happened when you're recording?

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Oh, there's so there's so many things that I have messed up, and luckily none of them have gone out into the public except for one. Okay. One of my very first books, before like we really like, before we knew about like beta listeners and like whatever, we didn't, like, we were babies. Like, I think this was our third or fourth book total that we'd ever done together. And we got to a scene where the character's car breaks down, and he's like, he's basically kind of like your California surfer dude, he's kind of like this the entire time, all the time. And so when the car broke down, he like is screaming like basically like Stanley Kowalski and Street Car Navy Sarah, like freaking out, and it just tickled us so much that we just started cackling and laughing. And that we didn't make a marker for it accidentally. Oh no. And our author didn't go through and listen to it before we had beta listeners because they thought we had beta listeners, and so they pushed it through. And we have tried to get Audible to fix it forever, and it's never been fixed. And now we just are like, we're not even gonna touch anymore because now it's an Easter egg that lives in that book.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Forever in that book.

When A Book Is Not Your Taste

SPEAKER_02 22:28

But uh, there is a blooper left in Succubus Lord One by Eric Vall, um, that is just us cackling because of that moment happening. But I have had so many funny mishaps in the booth of me just cackling, not knowing how to pronounce something and thought I did, you know, every one of those fun things that happened. Awesome. Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Well, I did have one more question, and uh, it's okay if you need to tiptoe around the answer to this, but is okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Have you ever done a project that was just so miserable to do that you kind of wish you would have backed out while it was I can't say what you know, I can't say much, but there's just been a couple of books where you're just like reading it and you're just like, why? Why is this the book that was written? And sometimes I look at the review count and I go, how is this doing as well as it's doing? Um, I won't say much more than like I don't want anyone to do anything with that information or make rumors or whatever, but there's a couple of times where I've just been like, okay, well, we're going to work again.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Well, you're human, you've got to have your own tastes in books. Exactly. Yeah. Sometimes you get a project that's not your taste, huh?

SPEAKER_02 23:37

No, that's it. I think that's that's probably a great way to look at it. It's just it wasn't my cup of tea. And I know that there's other people who it is their cup of tea, and that's great for them. It just was not me. So reading that book series sometimes is very difficult.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

You just have to be a consummate professional to be.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

I'm like, and now we're at work. Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

Well.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

All right. So we can look forward to hearing more of you in Red Rising. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

And what else is coming up that you want to plug right now?

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Oh gosh, too many books. Um, I know that the last book of the, or at least the third book of the natural magic series that I do with Sambu Theater is coming out. It's the it is the magpie oracle of sense and serendipity. And it is a lot of that whole series is a lot of fun. It's a cozy, um, they're all like cozy mystery love stories. They each have fantasy elements in them that are really cool. Um, I get to play a dragon shifter, and that's a lot of fun. Um, and in the second book, I got to play kind of like a witch that uh uses really funny um artifacts that seem ordinary like a handkerchief, but the handkerchief tells her like cliche information. And she has like earrings that are shaped like seashells that are called hearings, and it helps her hear conversations from afar and like just all these little quirky knickknacks that she carries with her that are magically enhanced. That's a lot of fun. Um, so I really love that series a lot, and I'm excited for that to come out. What am I currently working? I'm working on too much all at once. This is my problem. I'm gonna be doing the the series that's the Harley Quinn one. It's called Unserious, that I'm really excited about with Podium. And then I am working on a book with Aethon right now that's called The Years of the Apocalypse, that I think is gonna be a lot of fun, a lot of fun. That's a lit RPG type thing. Oh awesome. I'm always working on somewhere between five to ten books every month. So coming to an audiobook near you. Yeah, exactly. Many audiobooks. Yeah, I've been working in the industry for six years, and I think my last count was at 520 books.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

So that's incredible. I'm a workhorse. Well, that's awesome though.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

And you've earned it. You're incredibly talented.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. I just love doing this, and I think like when you love something, it doesn't feel like a job, it feels like you're getting to live out your passion. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Absolutely awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Well, thank you for having me. And we enjoy listening to you every time we turn on one of your audiobooks.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Thank you. I appreciate that so much.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

All right, that was our on the ground conversation with the incredibly talented Jessica Threte. If you're not already listening to her work, consider this your sign because a great narrator doesn't just read a story, they transform it.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

So please go check her audiobooks, show some love, and support the artists who make the stories hit even harder. And don't go anywhere. We've got more voices, more chaos, and more incredible conversations coming straight from JordanCon. Stay tuned for our next interview.