Robin Miles’s strong, powerful voice has made her a favorite among listeners.
Tthey respond to her many nuanced performances. She’s been the voice of such powerful pieces as Hidden Figures, the basis for the hit movie, and Roxanne Gay’s An Untamed State.
Miles, who’d been acting on and off Broadway and on TV, got her start in audio by working with the American Foundation for the Blind, where she recorded fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—after getting rejected at first and tweaking her style to suit. She’s had several Audie nominations since, winning as part of large cast recordings such as In the Embers, which won Best Audio Drama for 2017, and for her direction of Roots in 2007. She’s been drawn to women’s stories, often those of women of color and often ones with emotional and devastating themes, which she says can often affect her during the process.
Early on in her career, Miles recorded her first horror title, The Good House by Tananarive Due. That experience, with relatable characters and accessible accents, made her realize that she was a perfect fit for horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. Of her time working on the audio, Miles says, That book won me many fans and was a springboard to titles by astounding Caribbean futurists Nalo Hopkinson (Midnight Robber), Karen Lord (The Best of All Possible Worlds), and Tobias Buckell (the Xenowealth series), speculative fiction & fantasy writers that bring exciting modern elements to classic world building.