Here is a heart-warming story about how online networking brings people together as a family.

Janet Riehl and I met through poet Hal Manogue. I interviewed Hal on Writers in the Sky podcast in 2006 and Janet in early 2007. We have kept in touch ever since.

With Janet living in St. Louis and me living in Nashville, (Music City) we had not met until she decided to make the trip to meet Hal and me. A few weeks before her arrival, she asked if I knew of an audio engineer in Nashville who could assist her with recording and editing a project. She wanted to make an audio book of Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary the poetry she wrote about her family. Did I know of an audio engineer? Of course, I do! This is Nashville; and there’s either a musician, a church, a Mapco, or a recording studio on every corner, but only one engineer whom I knew personally and trusted for this project—my very own son-in-law, Scott Kidd.

Scott graduated from Shenandoah Conservatory and has been working in the music field for more than ten years. He came to our family by way of my daughter, Sareya, who fell in love with him six years ago. I cannot think of a better man to be part of our family. Naturally, I was thrilled when she and Scott married last June. Since I’ve been editing books for Hal Leonard Publishing I’ve learned a lot about the mixing, mastering, recording, and engineering side of the music business, and I’ve gained a new appreciation for what my son-in-law does for a living.

There may be others out there who are inspired to create an audio book. I’ve interviewed Janet about her experience in creating Sightlines and I’ll share it with you here:

YVONNE: Why did you want to make an audio of your book? JANET: I've wanted to make an audio book ever since Sightlines: A Poet's Diary was published in 2006. Over and over when folks heard me read my poems out loud they would comment how much my reading brought to their experience of the poems. When I appeared on your Writers in the Sky podcast January 12, 2007, that is one of the comments you made during our conversation—that you'd like to have a recording of the poems. As I've done readings and talks around the country based on the book over the past two books, this desire remained constant and became stronger.

YVONNE: How do you intend to use the audio? JANET: I'll sell the audio book during personal appearances and from my Web site. I expect It'll make a wonderful gift for dear friends and relatives, too, because it will contain so much of my father's distinctive singing and speaking voice and his wit and wisdom on it, woven in with the poetry published in Sightlines.

I'll also be producing a multimedia eBook—one of the newest forms on the web—that we'll sell off my site. The recording for the audio book CD will be doubled for the multimedia eBook. The multimedia eBook is simply text and links (or buttons and icons) that take you to audio, video, or anything, including external locations. It is an eBook that functions like a website or a blog.

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