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 Mike Ball is an award-winning humorist who lives and writes on the shores of Whitmore Lake, Michigan, sharing a roof with his wife, one son, three cats and a doberman. Their home is just North of Ann Arbor, a town that includes around 50,000 University of Michigan students, 62,595 student-staffed restaurants, and an undetermined number of one-way streets.
Mike spent the early years of his life in Kailua, Hawaii, sitting on a surfboard, taking guitar lessons and wondering what it would be like to play in one of those great Midwestern garage bands. By his teen years his family had moved to Indiana and he was living that dream, writing and performing timeless songs like Hey, That Rake Fell On My Amp. He honed his musical craft until he could play the solo from Louie, Louie with the guitar behind his head, and could get dates with girls by singing House of the Rising Sun sitting cross-legged on the front of the stage.
Recognizing that there was a relatively limited need in the music world for that particular skill set, Mike headed off to college. He picked up a Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University, where he learned that college girls preferred Jet Plane two-to-one over House of the Rising Sun. Pursuing graduate studies at the University of Notre Dame, he learned how to whine about a winning football program.
Immediately after graduating from college Mike took a job as a junior executive at a large corporation. While he was there he learned a lot about the business world, including how to drink scotch at lunch. After a couple of years he realized that he didn’t really care that much for scotch, so he resigned and embarked on a career as a novelist, achieving immediate success in the fields of lawn mowing and making belts and wallets to sell at art fairs.
He was able to successfully supplement the lawn mowing income by working as a freelance writer and photographer until 1979, when he founded The Advertising Group, Inc. as a network of freelance production talent. The group produced successful ad campaigns for a variety of clients, with Mike writing copy, providing creative direction, shooting photographs, and making sure everyone’s belts and wallets were up to snuff.
In 1981 The Advertising Group became a real company and moved into offices in Plymouth, Michigan. There they grew into a creative "hot shop" (referring more to the quality of their work than to the air conditioner), with clients in Michigan, New York City, Chicago, New Jersey, Florida, Kansas, Ohio and Indiana. In the late ‘80s Mike sold the company to a large ad agency in Troy, Michigan and went to work there as a vice president. After a couple of years he realized that he still didn’t care that much for scotch and bought his company back.
Over the past twenty-eight years, Mike has written and produced columns, ads, brochures, slogans, songs, menus, and anything else that needed writing, including a eulogy for a dog. He once wrote a monthly humor column for an information technology-oriented human resources magazine (now there’s a combination that just screams humor!) called Itrecruitermag. These pieces covered such topics as "What To Do When You Run Into Your Boss At The Career Fair" and "So, You’ve Been Downsized."
In 2003 he was awarded first prize in the the Erma Bombeck Writing Contest for his essay, "Just A Little Bike." His humor column, What I've Learned So Far... is a weekly feature in the Northfield Courant. Over the past few years his work has also appeared in the Livingston County Daily Press and Argus, Corp! Magazine and the Toledo Blade.
Away from the keyboard, Mike has had a lot of experience as a youth hockey coach. This includes two years as the head coach of the Saline, MI High School hockey team, during which time he discovered that you can actually see the cloud of testosterone in a high school hockey locker room.
Mike is also a competitive pairs water skier. This is a sport similar to pairs figure skating, only with less Russian Mafia involvement. He and various partners have won numerous awards, including the 1997 Florida State Show Ski Championship at Cypress Gardens, the 2000 Indoor World Championship, the 2002 Michigan State Expert Division Championship and the 2002 Division II National Championship.
Today Mike is working on two novels, a humor anthology, and on building a syndicate for What I’ve Learned So Far... He has shown consistently that he can find humor in and write about nearly any subject at any time.
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