What Authors Should Know about their Performing Voice

Meigs Glidewell: Voice Mountain, Voice River Workshop for Writers

Meigs Glidewell has customized her expressive voice workshop for writers like ourselves who speak to audiences about our books. This interactive workshop shows over two dozen exercises you can use to enrich the sound of your voice and add variety to your speech patterns. The exercises can help you replace a perfect monotone with a richer tone that expresses your conviction and practice adding drama and suspense when reading from your book. The exercises also help you stop committing 300-word sentences; help you be more fluent, more spontaneous.

Meigs has presented this workshop over 100 times to Toastmaster clubs in Boston, Phoenix, Tampa, and Sarasota, elementary school and university classes, and political groups.

Voice Mountain, Voice River Workshop  

Presented by Meigs Glidewell to Sarasota Fiction Writers 2024

CALISTHENICS               

Word Flow — Speak spontaneously for one to five minutes.

Poetry — Recite poems you know.  Experiment with sounds and asides.

Monologs — Recite monologs and speeches. (Try Cosby, Lincoln, Shakespeare.)

Read — Read aloud from any printed text.

Voice Mimic — Mimic voices you hear on radio.

Rant and Riff — Rant like an enraged driver.  Riff like an enthralled poet.

Voice Band — BangBangOodleeOodleeOodleeMmm!  Scat!  Have a Good Time!

VOICE SOUND                       

Voice River  — Speak so your words form a smooth vocal sound stream.

Voice Mountain — Change pitch like a thrilling roller coaster.

Happy Birthday — Welcome to your natural pitch.  ♬

Voice Rhythm — Experiment with series of short rhythmic sentences.

Voice Cave — Your torso is a deep hollow cave.  Use the whole cave.

Pure Tone — Show pure emotional tones. Try whining, conviction, warmth.

Speak Your Truth, Tell a Lie — Alternate between the two and feel the difference.

VOICE CLARITY

Articulation — Exaggerate the correct pronunciation.  A B C ... Z

Speed — Count as fast as you can, with clear articulation, for one minute.

Pause — Experiment with inserting pauses into your speech.

Alliteration — Invent your own variations of “Peter Piper picked a peck....”

LANGUAGE CLARITY   

Short Sentences — Deliver several short sentences of three to seven words.

Long Sentences — Deliver a few long sentences with ten or more clauses.

Rhetorical Questions — Ask several rhetorical questions, and for contrast ...

Genuine Questions — ... ask several genuine questions.  Hear the difference?

Definition — Define random objects in one or two sentences (term, category, desc.)

Super Summary — Summarize X in one to three sentences.

Body Throw — Throw your body, mind, and emotions into your message.

Bio: Meigs Glidewell has worked as an editor and writer since the 1980s.

Professional Writer and Editor.

Meigs has written more than 60 books for the computer industry, and she has edited hundreds of technical books and papers.

Gag Writer.

Meigs has written hundreds of gags for cartoonists and humorous greeting card publishers.As an amateur cartoonist, she has drawn cartoons for Computer World, Popular Electronics, and other technical magazines.

Comedian.

Meigs has written jokes for Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller, and she performed standup comedy in Boston area clubs for several years.

Comedy Editor.

As a member of a Boston comedians' workshop group, Meigs has worked with dozens of comedians to polish their material and their delivery