Best-selling author Catherine Lanigan is always ready for a new adventure.
Hailing from LaPorte, she wrote the 1984 novelization of the popular 1984 film “Romancing the Stone” starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas.
She also published the book version of the film sequel’s story, “The Jewel of the Nile,” released in 1985 at the same time the big screen treatment of the second film hit theaters, reuniting the same stars from the original movie.
To date, Lanigan has written and published more than 50 books, including her popular “Shores of Indiana Lake” series published by Harlequin with characters and locations based on Pine Lake, in LaPorte and Northwest Indiana. Her second book in that series, “The Sweetest Heart,” was made into a cable film for Hallmark Channels.
Always heralding her own immersed interest in angels and the supernatural, Lanigan said her latest project for a just-released audiobook series has her feeling like she’s “gone back into time.”
Earlier this year, Lanigan was approached by the audiobook publishing company Sounded.com to lend her voice to recording the “The Adventures of Lilli and Zane” teen book series she wrote beginning in 1996 with the 419-page “Rivers of Gold,” which eventually attracted the attention of Cat Nolan Publishing for this tale following the young adventurers to Machu Picchu in South America.
“I was approached by an audio producer, and I loved the idea of my own voice capturing the words of my own work,” said Lanigan, who joined me Sept. 7 with other featured authors at Starke County Library in Knox for the second annual Beyond the Book Festival.
“Now, I always clarify that after they had me record a couple of my books in my own full voice, a synthetic narration auto-audio technology is used by the Sounded.com company to then do my other books in my recreated vocals.”
Lanigan, like so many writers, artists and journalists, remains optimistic yet fearful Artificial Intelligence (AI) is closing the doors on human creativity for cultivating new ideas and robbing financial backing for new projects.
One of the book cover display panels she includes at her signing table for book events is the cover of her 2006 book “Writing the Great American Romance Novel” which now includes the addition of the words “I am not AI” next to her author name.
Today’s economical embrace for using AI for creating cover art, written content and even ghost-writer fabricated author names were all reasons she was so pleased to be invited to lend her voice to at least some of the audio versions of her more than 70 published books.
“If I were to individually record every one of my books in my own voice and all that studio time, imagine how long that would take,” Lanigan reasoned.
Unveiled this week at Sounded.com, “The Adventures of Lilli and Zane” series began with the first 304-page book “The Golden Flute” (2012 Cedar Fort Inc. Press) introducing readers (and now listeners) to teen treasure hunters Lilli and Zane on the hunt for ancient artifacts.
Ranging in download price from $5.99 to $7.99, there are seven “Lilli and Zane” audiobooks, all narrated by Lanigan, now available and spanning two to three hours in length. Her larger combined audiobook series are up to seven hours in length. Full details are at www.sounded.com or www.catherinelanigan.com.
“We’ve been releasing audiobook trailers on YouTube as teasers for the ‘Adventures of Lilli and Zane’ books and I love the dramatic music overlay and the images, some of which are my own photos from Egypt,” Catherine said.
“But for the adventure mystery book of Lilli and Zane traveling to the Bermuda Triangle, I couldn’t be much help since I’ve never been to that area in my own life adventures. At least, not yet.”
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@comhs.org.