Michael Kroll

My name is Michael Kroll, and I am an Oakland-based voiceover artist. My recently recorded demo tapes can be heard on my web page at http://www.michaelsvoice.net, along with samples of three professionally-produced stories, which I wrote and narrated.

My story begins in the mountains above California's beautiful Ojai Valley where I spent hours with my dog looking for lizards and snakes – and gaining an enduring love for the music of nature.

After college, I joined the Peace Corps and taught English in a Chinese high school in the jungles of Malaysian Borneo. The experiences I had there were extraordinary: coming face-to-face with elephants crossing my path; catching a cobra that crawled into my classroom! But it was as a language teacher that I learned the importance of hearing the spoken word. I taught my students to rely on their ear and not their eye. Their voices still ring in my mind’s ear, more than 50 years later.

The lessons I learned there have guided my career as an award-winning writer and journalist. Whether for publication or pleasure, nothing I write is finished until I read it aloud, until I hear it, until my ear tells him it is right. Following this principle, I recently completed and recorded my first novel, as well as a couple of my short stories. The pleasure – and feedback – I received from that experience is one of the main reasons I decided to become a voice over artist.

As an advocate for criminal justice reform, I appear often on radio and TV. Currently, I lead writing workshops in jails and juvenile halls where I rely on my voice to command and control, to coax and cajole, and often merely to calm. And from the voices of the incarcerated, I learn every day.