Dolly Parton, Bono, “Weird Al” Yankovic and other music personalities are among the finalists for the 2024 Audie Awards, which recognize distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. The nominations, which are presented by the Audio Publishers Association (APA), go to the narrators rather than the authors (unless they are one and the same). Winners across 27 competitive categories will be revealed on March 4 in Los Angeles.
Parton is nominated in the autobiography/memoir category for Behind the Seams, which she wrote and narrated with Holly George-Warren and Rebecca Seaver. Her competition includes actor Patrick Stewart for Making It So.
Bono is nominated for the top award, audiobook for the year, for Surrender, which he both wrote and narrated. His competition includes Meryl Streep, the narrator of Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake.
Yankovic is nominated in the multi-voiced performance category for Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!. Yankovic narrated the saga of the 1980 comedy classic with a full cast including Barry Diller, Beau Bridges, Bill Hader, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jimmy Kimmel.
Because nominations go to the narrators, the nominee for best non-fiction narrator for Britney Spears’ best-seller The Woman in Me is its narrator, Michelle Williams rather than the pop superstar.
Nominees in the narration by the author(s) category include former first lady Michelle Obama for The Light We Carry and, again, Patrick Stewart for Making It So.
Obama is also nominated in the business/personal development category for The Light We Carry, where she faces Tony and Emmy winner Sheryl Lee Ralph, nominated for Diva 2.0: 12 Life Lessons from Me for You.
Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald is nominated in the literary fiction & classics category for Homer’s The Iliad. Among the other nominees in the category: two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks for his own book The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, with a full cast including Rita Wilson, Natalie Morales, Ego Nwodim and Holland Taylor.
Tony and Grammy winner Leslie Odom Jr. is nominated in the young listeners category for I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know, which he narrated with his wife, Nicolette Robinson.
In the humor category, the nominees include Leslie F*cking Jones, written and narrated by Leslie Jones, with a foreward by Chris Rock.
All 27 categories are gender-neutral this year. The best male narrator and best female narrator categories have been transformed to best fiction narrator and best non-fiction narrator.
The full list of nominations can be found on the APA’s website: audiopub.org.
This story originally appeared on Billboard
