About Mike Ball
Mike Ball is an award-winning humorist and author who lives and writes on the shores of Whitmore Lake, Michigan with his wife Nan and a squadron of bats who generally stay outdoors and patrol the airspace. Their home is just North of Ann Arbor, site of the University of Michigan and one of the world’s most fertile breeding grounds for folk singers and Budweiser-soaked football fans.
Mike has spent most of his adult life writing. He has produced columns, ads, brochures, slogans, songs, menus, and pretty much anything else, including a eulogy for a dog. For more than a decade his syndicated humor column had readers in eleven countries (that we know of).
He has four books in print. You can make up for lost time with three compilations of the What I’ve Learned… So Far columns.He is also the author of a novel titled Olympus, Indiana, the first of a planned three-part series, in which he explores the deep spiritual aspects of a bunch of Greek gods running a hotel in southern Indiana.
In 2003 Mike won the Erma Bombeck Award for a column called Just A Little Bike and he was a finalist for the 2011 Robert Benchley Award.
Mike also helps other writers with their literary endeavors as an editor, ghost writer, and book shepherd.
Mike is also an accomplished musician and the founder of Lost Voices, a Michigan-based group that designs and implements therapeutic roots music writing and performing programs for teenage girls and boys who are victims of severe emotional trauma, including survivors of human trafficking.
The work of the Lost Voices teams has had a profoundly positive effect on the lives of more than 2,500 kids since 2006. We urge you to go to the Lost Voices Website and take a look at what this group is doing.
As the front man of the band Dr. Mike & The Sea Monkeys, Mike brings his sense of humor to musical life with such crowd pleasers as “Carlson the Pissed Off Angel,” “At Least I’ve Got Most of My Hair,” and “The Colonscopy Song.” The band is sometimes just Mike and some guitars, but he’s well-known for having unexpected musical guests join him on stage, including Peter Madcat Ruth (pictured here), Josh White, Jr., Kitty Donohoe, Sienna Morgan, and the occasional handful of preschoolers who like to dance in front of the stage.
Mike does great house concerts – just sayin’.
Mike spent quite a bit of time a few years back churning up various bodies of water as a nationally-competitive pairs water skier. This is a sport similar to pairs figure skating, only with less Russian Mafia involvement.
He and various partners won quite a few awards, including the 1997 Florida State Show Ski Championship at Cypress Gardens (with Amanda Bott), the 2001 Indoor World Championship (with Megan Atkins, pictured here), the 2002 Michigan State Expert Division Championship, and the 2002 Division II National Championship (with Brittany Krutty).
The purple and green spandex you see here was not entirely Mike’s fault.