Shut tight the doors and dim the lights. I want you to read me a story.

No, seriously. I want you to read me a story. One of mine. Out loud.

I’m asking you to choose your favorite passage from one of my stories; any story will do. Pick an evocative passage (if there are truly any to be found) that really grabs you, gets inside you, makes you feel something. Record yourself reading it. Then I want you to send it to me as an MP3 file. If you need ammunition, let me refer you to my wares available on Amazon and any of my 100% free fiction still available via Podiobooks. You can even use one of my blog posts if it was something that was particularly meaningful to you. The only requirements here are that I wrote it and you liked it.

Why am I tasking you with this mission, beyond simple vanity? Next year I will be launching a huge new multimedia fiction project. I’m not ready to discuss the details yet, but it’s a big deal to me and if you’re a fan of my work in any or all of its forms it will be a big deal to you, too. Your voices will be used to help raise awareness for that coming project (read: shamelessly promote, pimp, and shill). I’ll be stringing them all together in (hopefully) a very cool way that many people will see and hear and you will be pleased you took part in this.

I want as many voices as possible, and I want them from as many places as possible. I’m fortunate to have readers and students from almost every corner of the world, and I really want that represented in this mission. That doesn’t mean I’m discounting all of my homegrown readers in the USA or my extremely polite and healthy fans in Canada. I need you all.

But let’s face it. Accents are cool.

So pick a passage that moves you and read it like it moves you. That doesn’t mean you have to perform it. I’m not looking for high drama. I just want to hear what the words make you feel and how they sound to you when you read them. If you want to read several pieces, feel free to do so. If you want to get creative and cast character voices or anything along those lines, feel free to do that, as well.

E-mail your readings to matt@matt-wallace.com by September 15th to make sure your recording is included. I’ll send everyone the finished product in advance so you can hear what you helped create.

Depending on how many recordings I get, I may not be able to use them all. So make your reading count.

There. You have your mission. You have your deadline. Go forth and read me a story.