In celebration of the release of Platinum Magic, by Bruce Davis on audio book this last month, Brick Cave Media wanted to take a moment and interview the books voice talent, Nick Selker. This interview is part one of two, and you can read part two here.
You can order Platinum Magic on Audio Book from Apple Books, Audible or Amazon.
Nick, share a little about you.
Hi there, I’m Nick! I’m a voice actor and actor in Chicago. I’m originally from Pittsburgh, where I started doing improv comedy and voice acting before deciding to make the jump to Chicago to study improv at the theaters here. Unfortunately for me, I made that jump in March 2020, just in time for the theaters to close because of Covid-19. But that gave me more time to focus on voice acting, which has been great! Outside of the performing and recording world, I spend a lot of my free time reading, enjoying the outdoors and running games of Dungeons & Dragons with my friends.
How did you get started as a voice talent?
I’ve been fascinated by voice acting since I was young, starting with my deep love for animation and video games as a kid that grew to include radio and audiobooks as I got older. After I finished college, I decided to pursue voice acting so I didn’t have to live with any “what if?” thoughts as I got older. I started taking classes and it has kind of snowballed into where I’m at now. I’ve been very fortunate to work in commercials, video games and audiobooks since then.
What brought you to Platinum Magic?
I went into the audition thinking Platinum Magic would be a standard fantasy novel, but as I started to read I discovered it was much more than that. It took many of the fantasy tropes that I was familiar with and transplanted them into a modern world of intrigue, crime and mystery. Bruce’s brilliant writing kept me guessing with every page and I am very grateful for the opportunity to narrate such a compelling book.
What qualities in writing do you feel makes for a successful text to narrate?
Great characters are definitely the most important quality for me. Whenever you can step into a character with a strong point of view it makes the words come off of the page. It makes the story much more immersive for the narrator. Bruce really brought the world to life through the characters, which made it easy to get sucked into the story the further along that I went.
What’s on your ‘to read’ pile, what do you read for enjoyment?
I mostly read fantasy, horror and history, but I’ll read just about anything that piques my interest. At the moment I’m slowly working my way through The Silmarillion. After that I’ve got Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson or Moby-Dick to move onto. I also have an audiobook of a Napoleon biography (Napoleon by Andrew Roberts) that I’ve been meaning to get around to, but it clocks in at about 33 hours so it's quite the time commitment. I’ll get to it one day!
Nick is on twitter at @VoiceofSelker and can be reached through his website at http://voiceofselker.com.
