The Audiobooks at Sea 2027 Crew
As of 4/27/26*
More coaches and presenters to be added as confirmed.
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Bahni Turpin
Guest Coach
Bahni Turpin is a Los Angeles based actress working in film, television, onstage and in audiobook narration. As a narrator Bahni has received many accolades including being one of the first inductees into the Audible Hall of Fame in 2018. And was Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2015. In 2017 Bahni was named Booklist’s Voice of Choice. She is the recipient of more than 7 Audie Awards for audiobook narration, including one for Audiobook of the Year for Children of Blood and Bone in 2019, and 2026’s Audie for Middle Grade title, All the Blues in the Sky. Bahni has received two Odyssey Awards , conferred by the American Library Association, has been named a Golden Voice by AudioFile Magazine, (now Kirkus Reviews) and is the recipient of more than 60 Earphones Awards. To date she has narrated close to 500 titles. In addition to audiobook narration, Bahni has lent her voice to two films: “Sapelo”, and “Zora Neale Hurston , Claiming a Space”.
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Grover Gardner
Guest Coach, Senior Audio Producer - Blackstone Audio
Grover Gardner is an audiobook narrator, producer and director with over 40 years' experience in the industry. He's narrated over 1500 titles, been named an Audiofile Magazine "Golden Voice" and Publisher's Weekly "Best Narrator of the Year," and garnered over 30 Earphones Awards and 4 Audie Awards. Working in a wide variety of genres, he's won praise for recordings as diverse as Stephen King's The Stand and Will and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization. He is currently a Senior Audio Producer for Blackstone Publishing in Ashland, Oregon.
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Sean Pratt
Guest Coach
Sean Pratt has been a working actor for over 30 years. He has been an audiobook narrator for 25 years (aka – Lloyd James), recording over 1,100 books in almost every genre and has received nine AudioFile Magazine “Earphones” awards, five SOVAS nominations, and five “Audie” nominations from the Audio Publishers Association.
Sean is also the author of “To Be or Wanna Be – The Top Ten Differences between a Successful Actor and a Starving Artist.”
Currently, Sean coaches performers on audiobook narration technique, as well as teaching classes on and writing articles about the business of “The Biz”.
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Joel Froomkin
Host, Head Coach, and Creator
Joel is an Audie nominated, eleven-time Earphones Award-Winning narrator of over 450 titles. He was the recipient of the 2020 Best Male Narrator Award at the Independent Audio Book Awards and the 2020 Best Humor Narration recipient at the Society of Voice Arts Awards (in addition to his five other SOVAS nominations). He is the recipient of two Audiobook Reviewer awards and was named the first member of the Narrator Hall of Fame and All-Time Favorite Narrator in the Goodreads M/M Reader’s Choice Awards.
With an MFA in theatre from USC, he has served as Director of Drama at Manchester University and taught accents at NYU. He is the creator of Acting for Audio, a zoom-based acting course focused on the art of narration. He is a sucker for Disney and dachshunds.
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Rich Najuch
Producer, Admin, and Creator
Rich is the one you will be emailing, phoning, or texting with! All cabin arrangements and workshop bookings will be handled by him.
In 2023 Rich was awarded the distinction of “Partner of the Year” from Celebrity Cruises as well as being inducted a member of Celebrity’s Iconic Advisor Club - a club featuring their 100 most successful partner agents.
Rich is an Accredited Cruise Counselor and member of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). He is familiar with planning and executing events through his work as Executive Producer at The New Huntington Theater for 10 years, as Executive Assistant to the Dean of Columbia Business School, and a lifetime in the theater. When not booking cruise adventures for his guests, Rich is often working at a sewing or embroidery machine.