My mom's reading did have an influence on me, but in a "things I do very differently" way. I love her dearly, but she reads aloud really fast, and always kind of skipped and slurred through stories. Don't get me wrong, she cheerfully read my favorite books to me a bazillion times, so I'm not knocking her reading to me, not at all. But when I started reading aloud to my own daughter, I realized that slowing down is harder than it seems. So, I made an effort to slow down and enjoy the story and the act of reading aloud. I also found it more interesting for myself to do different voices and find a voice for the narration.

I have to say that that experience is what really influenced how I did podficcing. I had to learn how to lose my own self-consciousness when I read to my daughter, and learn not to care if I sounded like an enormous dork. After singing, "Fuzzy little snuggle puppy, I love you," about 500 times with unironic, genuine feeling, I found that there wasn't much about podficcing that made me self-conscious anymore. It was a really profound turning point for me.