Audiobook Narrator Spotlight: Lauren Fortgang

If you listen to a lot of audiobooks, you might recognize the name Lauren Fortgang. Adept at infusing different characters with distinctive qualities, Fortgang excels with large casts of characters. In the audio version of Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo, which features multiple third-person points of view, you can tell each character’s chapter solely based on the tone of her voice.

Originally from Delaware, Fortgang grew up in California and trained as an actor in San Francisco before attending college at Fordham University in New York. She currently lives in Brooklyn and her personal website declares her love of crafting and Dungeons & Dragons. An accomplished artist, Fortgang has recorded hundreds of audiobooks in addition to voiceovers for commercials and characters in video games from Grand Theft Auto to Magic The Gathering: Arena. She’s also appeared on camera in Law & Order and Important Things with Demetri Martin.

Grishaverse 

Similar to how Jim Dale is the iconic voice of the Harry Potter series, Fortgang’s voice has become forever linked with Leigh Bardugo’s novels. She’s narrated all the Grishaverse books, including The Lives of Saints, which she recorded with Netflix’s Shadow & Bone star Ben Barnes. She also voices Bardugo’s adult Alex Stern series.

The Lives of Saints

Children’s Audio

Fortgang has voiced a number of audiobooks for children as well. She narrates the first installment of the popular I Survived series, I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, a few Baby-Sitters Club books and the Minecraft series League of Griefers for Audible, and books two and three of the Three Times Lucky series by Shiela Turnage.

I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 (I Survived #1)

As a Member of a Full Cast

Fortgang has also recorded audiobooks as part of a full cast of readers. She is one of the narrators of The Daily Show: The Audiobook, telling stories by Jon Stewart and others from the seminal television show. She is also one of the readers on Letters from an Astrophysicist from Neil Degrasse Tyson, and the voice of Jo in Audible’s full cast rendition of Little Women narrated by Laura Dern.

The Daily Show (The audiobook)

Other Novels

Fortgang narrates quite a few thrillers for adults, including a number of James Patterson titles. She is one of the narrators of The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins, a spooky and thrilling retelling of Jane Eyre, and reads You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott about the dark ambitions of gymnastics families. She also is the narrator of books by Brene Brown and Joan Didion.

The Wife Upstairs

There are many more titles read by Lauren Fortgang in our collection. Browse our catalog or ask a librarian to help you find more from this superb vocal talent.