Beyond the Bayou

Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty (1850-1904), was an American writer of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. Chopin is best known for her novel The Awakening, and for her short story collections, Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Of French and Irish descent, her work depicted the various ethnic groups of Louisiana, especially of Creoles, with sensitivity and wit, and featured vivid descriptions of the natural environment there. After her husband died in 1882 and left her $42,000 in debt, Chopin took up writing to support her family of six children. Though popular, her serious literary qualities were overlooked in her day, and she is now seen as an important early American feminist writer.

Susie Berneis is a versatile voiceover artist with numerous narration credits to her name. She has an ear for dialect and a love for the process of developing characters, which has been cultivated through her twenty-plus years of experience as a community and regional stage actress. Based in Ann Arbor (home of the University of Michigan, where she received her BA in English and theatre), she now takes great joy in playing all the characters she encounters in her narration.