Literary Voices

Three Wilmington women are transforming the world of books. JESSICA TOBIN runs Burning Pages, Wilmington’s only independent bookstore specializing in romantasy books. HEATHER SETZLER narrates audiobooks in a variety of genres. And ANGELA FERNOT illustrates books and produces a local comic book anthology.

If you’ve been around Wilmington for a while, you’ve probably heard HEATHER SETZLER’s clear, melodic voice before.

Setzler spent nearly twenty years in the TV news industry as a WECT producer and reporter while also appearing in countless local and regional theater productions. On top of this, Setzler also lends her voice to audiobook narration and voiceover work.

Setzler grew up in Newberry, South Carolina. After graduating from Winthrop University and beginning her career in Charlotte, she moved to Wilmington in 2003 and began working for WECT. During her years in the TV news industry, she filled much of her time outside of work acting in local productions for Thalian Association and Opera House Theatre.

In 2018 she took a professional leap, leaving her TV news career to pursue performance full time. She expanded her theatre work to include regional productions from Florida to Pennsylvania. It was around this time that fellow Wilmington actor BRENT SCHRAFF introduced Setzler to voiceover work.

Setzler’s first voiceover work included corporate and radio projects, eventually booking her first audiobook in 2021. She has since voiced a range of books spanning genres, including young adult, romance, mystery, and nonfiction.

Being an avid reader and a trained voice actor has made audiobook narration feel natural for Setzler. “Because I’m an avid reader, I just like the reading part,” she says. “I like some of the character work, but I mostly enjoy following along with the story and finding out what happens.”

Most recently, Setzler voiced the audiobook for the novel Deadly Gold Rush by Charlotte-based author Landis Wade. “It’s a murder mystery set in a senior retirement community in the present day,” Setzler says. “It has a lot of humor and local history.”

Deadly Gold Rush had twenty-five different characters to voice, which felt inherently challenging, Setzler says. However, Landis allowed Setzler the freedom to use her acting skills to differentiate each character’s voice through tone, rather than developing a different pitch for each character.

She got to attend the book launch event for Deadly Gold Rush in Charlotte, where she was introduced as the voice of the audiobook, and she got to read aloud from the book. “As a voiceover artist, you’re just a voice out in the ether, so it was cool to be part of that and be recognized as part of the book,” she says.

Setzler records most of her voiceover work in one of Schraff’s voiceover studios that is fully soundproofed. She says her goal is to make the listening experience “as easy on the ears as possible. I try to have clear diction, and I like for it to be real. I want my characters to sound like themselves.”

To view more of photographer Aris Harding’s work, go to arisharding.com.

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