For Kids
Author Erin Hemenway writes, “Audiobooks saved my life.
That may sound like hyperbole, but when you’re trapped in a cancer center with a needle in your arm and tubes snaking out of your veins, it’s not. You’re wondering, ‘What is the point of the fight. Why go through all this pain and suffering? Is this medicine worth it?’”
Spokane author and multimedia artist Erin Hemenway is launching Literature Beyond Paper into production, creating the audiobook edition of her 2024 novel The Night Before Christmas, a humorous holiday story about a woman trapped in a Christmas time loop, and building public events around the process. Hemenway plans to work with Spokane narrators, engineers, and small businesses, including Jupiter’s Eye Book Café, to keep the project rooted locally. Her own history with audiobooks began during cancer treatment, when listening was the only way she could access stories; that experience shapes both the tone of the project and its focus on people who read differently. SAGA funding will cover the studio work, narration, distribution, and event space, so Hemenway can bring the audiobook to life with a professional team.
Beyond the recording, Literature Beyond Paper is intended to open access to literature for people who rely on audio formats for physical, cognitive, or situational reasons. When the audiobook is complete, it will be available through Spokane Public Libraries, Indie Washington, and a focused outreach effort to cancer centers so patients can get the book easily and at no cost. Public events planned for November 2026 will invite the community to participate in an interactive reading, learn how audiobooks are made, and meet the author and narrator in a hands-on, low-barrier setting. For Hemenway, the project is a way to return the encouragement she once received from stories—and to make sure Spokane readers and listeners have more than one way to reach the worlds inside a book.