Making a Shakespeare and Neurodiversity audiobook
Updated: 5 hours ago
Dr Laura Seymour, Principal Investigator, AMEND
In 2026, I recorded my teaching guide Shakespeare and Neurodiversity (Cambridge University Press, 2025) as an audiobook.
I did this because I thought it would make the book more accessible for people who find reading printed text hard or unappealing, and people who like the freedom an audiobook gives them to stim or carry out tasks while they listen.
The main thing I appreciated whilst recording this audiobook was the skill of the person editing it, Geraint Daniel, at Swansea recording studio. He had an amazing attention to detail and technological knowledge. It is interesting to collaborate with people and see their skills in action, and to make a finished object together.
Another thing that audiobooks made me think about are time and labour conditions. Many people working in universities are on precarious contracts, working beyond their contracted hours, and doing all this while their jobs are under threat from ‘money saving’ cuts. Disabled and neurodivergent people spend our spoons at work on top of all the spoons we have to spend in our daily lives. I was grateful to have the time and energy in early 2026 to make this audiobook. Though the book is a short one, part of the Cambridge Elements series of pocket pedagogical guides, it took 7 hours to record, and more hours to edit.
With audiobooks narrated by their authors, you can hear the author’s accent, tone, pace of speaking, and so on. I am not a professional voice actor, so I read in my own voice just focusing on trying to speak clearly even as I mispronounced some words. In Podcasts and Feminist Shakespeare Pedagogy Varsha Panjwani explains how important it is in Shakespeare studies for different voices literally to be heard. As Shakespeare is so often linked to white and elite culture, hearing women’s voices, the voices of people of colour, and voices with accents from all over the world talk about Shakespeare helps to add some balance. Panjwani’s podcast Women and Shakespeare puts this into action.
Dr Diana Beljaars, who works on Tourette Syndrome and OCD, suggested I make an audiobook. Her audiobook Compulsive Body Spaces, was also recorded by Geraint. Check it out!
Though many of my ideas about neurodiversity have moved on since I first wrote the book, making the Shakespeare and Neurodiversity audiobook felt like a good use of my time. It made me think carefully about my words, and remember that every word we choose can be important.
Listen to Shakespeare and Neurodiversity on Spotify for free: Shakespeare and Neurodiversity | Audiobook on Spotify
Buy the paperback here: Shakespeare and Neurodiversity
Special thanks to Gillian Woods and Liam Semler, the series editors of Cambridge Elements in Shakespeare and Pedagogy for supporting this audiobook.
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