Since it is October, I thought I would read a spooky Poe story for my YouTube channel. I chose, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” one of the stories most commonly assigned for school reading. I thought, at first, I would choose a lesser known story of Poe’s, but looking through some lesser known options, I understood why didn’t achieve the same popularity.
I have always liked being dramatic — I was in drama competitions in high school — but this is, perhaps, the creepiest sort of role I have ever taken on. The narrator of the story is a fairly disturbed murderer.
I am getting ready to launch an English tutoring business, and one niche specialty I’d like to focus on is SAT prep. I hope to follow this video up with some teaching videos focused on the story, some other teaching content, and I would also like to add some more dramatic readings of stories and poetry.
I think anyone, student or not, can enjoy the dramatic readings. When the pandemic began, I noticed all sorts of celebrities reading for children on YouTube, but I don’t think children are the only ones who can appreciate a good story read aloud.
It’s not flawless. There are a couple of trip ups, which I didn’t edit out. I’m still fairly pleased with it.
What should I read next?
That was awesome, Susan! If I had the money, I’d hire you to read my novels. The narrator does make a difference. Since you did Poe, I thought I’d point out a musical sister duo called Larkin Poe. Poe was their ancestor. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Denise. What a nice compliment! 🙂 I do want to do more readings for YouTube and got some more classic short story and poetry collections for that purpose. I did record myself reading a chapter of one of my books a few years ago, but I’d like to redo it some time. I used a different method of recording, and there’s a bit of computer background noise. Thanks for the information on Larkin Poe. I think one of their songs, “Mad as a Hatter,” came up in my YouTube recommendations quite a while back. I had a vague memory of it but couldn’t remember my impression of it. I looked it up again and also listened to one of their other songs, “Back Down South.” They do have a nice sound. I did wonder at their name but didn’t know they were descendants of Poe, so that is rather interesting.