Upgrading my Radio Dramas

Oh yeah, and this - "I'm running a mac and audacity is too slow on my machine" - sounds kind of odd to me. I haven't used it a ton, but my experience has been that Audacity's a fairly quick program even on ancient computers. You might want to do a re-install and make sure you have the latest version. Also, in general, media editing programs do tend to be processor hogs, so you'll probably get better results if Audacity or whatever else you eventually go with are the only programs running when you're working in them.

I use my university's recording studio to record vocals, This suggests that your university has some kind of "audio/video technology" or "media production" program. So, first, how about looking for help from a fellow student who's in that program, probably cheaper than paying a pro, and they may even be willing and able to collaborate with you for credit or a class project. Also, colleges & college students often have access to deeply discounted versions of software like http://www.avid.com/US/products/pro-tools-software (the industry standard for audio recording and editing.) Even if you don't get your own copy, you might be able to get to use such a program on the school's machines. Is there a better software for editing? Yes, several (and better for recording, too), although the learning curve might be a little steep for you. The term you're looking for is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_workstation. One free/share/honor-ware system (download is free, the first window that shows up every time you open it asks for money, but you can just click past it until/unless you donate and get a registration key code) I've seen people use often is http://www.reaper.fm, which also has a whole community of people creating "plug-ins", small add-on programs that let you do things like reduce or eliminate buzz & noise, or level out volumes, or change the tone of a track, stuff like that. how would I find someone to professionally edit and mix the tracks? There are a ton of people doing this professionally, semi-professionally, and as (sometimes very talented) amateurs. Unless you are pretty literally in the middle of nowhere, you should be able to find a bunch of people doing this within an hour's drive of you. You'll want to search for "recording studio" or "mastering studio." Most will have some kind of web presence with audio samples of their work or links to the pages of acts they've worked with so you can hear some of what they've done. Would this be prohibitively expensive? There's no way to really answer this definitively. Studios can charge by the hour (hour of work, not hour of finished product) and/or by the project and/or by "blocks" of time based on a discount off their hourly rate. And different studios can and will charge different amounts, depending on the city they're in, and how much work they have at the moment, and how hi-tech their set-up is, and, I dunno, the phase of the moon or such. Like, a studio in a commercial space in Boston with all the latest and greatest gear that's mostly doing advertising voiceover work is probably going to be more expensive than a guy or girl doing it for fun and extra cash in their basement in Indianapolis. But maybe not, if the Boston place is in urgent need of cash, and has enough experience to work very quickly, and is willing to do the work in "off" hours, like after midnight. So you'll want to call and email a variety of places and get some quotes or estimates to get an idea of how much it might cost, and then decide if you think it's prohibitively expensive.

I'm just a serialized podcast stories listener, but I believe that the producers in my feed who don't use Audacity use https://ardour.org/. In terms of hiring production: I have been impressed by what Nobilis Reed turns out, I think you can pay for him through http://quiverandarch.com/, and I'm listening to http://rishoutfield.blogspot.com/'s narration of http://www.abigailhilton.com/'s Hunter's Unlucky. It's amazing, and I believe that Abby hired him to do the whole shebang, though she may have also done the final mix (I think she did the production work on the full cast Guild of the Cowry Catchers). But if he can do the voice work through the production like that, he can certainly also just do the production. I believe that http://jdsawyer.net/ has a production company, his full cast audio stuff is pretty amazing, and ... Sooo many people with awesome well produced audio story podcasts, I don't want to leave anyone out and I'm leaving all sorts of people out, but you might also ping http://www.voicesbyveronica.com/ to see if she does post stuff, or if she can recommend someone. (It sounds like Balticon or the New Media Expo are the places to catch these folks)

Oh, also: Norm Sherman does some amazing work for The Drabblecast, Escape Pod, and various other outlets. I don't know if he's available for hire, but I searched on "Norm Sherman production services" and got http://www.drabblecast.org/2014/02/27/drabblecast-b-sides-40-drabblecast-presents-audio-fiction-production-pt-1/ and http://www.drabblecast.org/2014/03/12/drabblecast-b-sides-41-drabblecast-presents-audio-fiction-production-pt-2/.

Aaaaand. while I'm hitting "Post Answer" way too frequently: Yes, you want a podcast (easiest way for people to listen on the go), and I don't know what it takes to get on iTunes or other venues, but I do know that several of the feeds in my podcast app point to https://www.libsyn.com/ domains.

If you want very thorough advice from some of the best radio producers in public radio, go to http://transom.org. Besides gear and software, they also have a ton of advice and passion-making articles for aspirational producers.