Ann Richardson

Being the daughter of a Swedish immigrant brought facets to my childhood that were not uncommon in rural Nebraska where I grew up. Many of my friends were children of European immigrants who grew up hearing different languages spoken around the dinner table at night. We were a close-knit community and learned the value of hard work and honesty by going to church together, walking beans or detasseling corn together and showing our 4-H livestock at the county fair. In my free time I was always either reading a book, or on horseback, riding around the countryside visiting friends.

As a teenager and into college, I worked for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission in the Fisheries Division, guiding tours of school groups through the Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium, talking about fish and wildlife native to Nebraska. Since I love bugs, spiders, snakes, toads and the like, it was a perfect fit.

In my time studying broadcast journalism at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, I managed to fall in love and marry my husband. We moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for nine years, then took a break to raise our two sons. Part-time jobs came and went: a veterinary clinic, teaching computers at an elementary school, and finally in the automotive industry, which was where I was when the economic crash of 2008 happened.

Looking into alternative occupations, I revisited voiceover and soon began volunteer-narrating for Learning Ally (formerly Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic). What joy it was to finally realize what I wanted to do with myself! All those wonderful feelings I’d experienced when singing and acting onstage all through my high school years came back to me!

After coaching with some of the best in the industry (Paul Ruben, Simon Vance, PJ Ochlan, Erin Bennett, Christa Lewis) and bolstered by 6 years of Swedish lessons, I had no trouble connecting with books written by authors such as Camilla Läckberg, Arne Dahl, Vilhelm Moberg, and Helene Tursten. My childhood spent riding my little old paint pony as far and fast as her legs could go, connected me to texts such as Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, Wild Horses of the Summer Sun, a Memoir of Iceland, by Tori Bilski, and Horseback Riding for Dummies. My 4-H and vet clinic experiences lent themselves nicely to narrating many Scientific American books and for authors such as Temple Grandin.

I love narrating and soon discovered that included researching pronunciations. Fun fact: the longest book I’ve narrated to date is Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses (Witchcraft & Spells). Its run time is 64 hours, 34 minutes. The research for that book was over 2500 words long and spanned many different languages. It took me over a month to record, and afterward, I made my family take me to Fenton’s Ice Cream in Oakland, for a giant banana split.

When I’m not narrating, I coach aspiring narrators. In 2021, I was honored when Andi Arndt asked me to join the faculty of her boutique narrator community, Narrator.Life 365. So I created a 10-lesson self-study course and hold open studio sessions for new narrators. I also teach Introduction to Audiobooks for Voice One school in San Francisco.

In my free time, I enjoy long distance running, having run scores of half-marathons and one full marathon. I live in wine country, so naturally I enjoy wine-tasting and spending time in the beauty of the vineyards near my home. I also enjoy painting, photography, gardening, hiking, and exploring. In fact, one of my favorite pastimes is picking up cool-looking rocks while I’m hiking and tumbling them in my rock polisher.