Marcus Williams

High school English teacher in Chicago, 20 years watching teenagers pretend to read. I run a tiny podcast about classic literature called "The Annotated Life" that exactly 47 people listen to. One of them is my mom. She says she's proud but I know she falls asleep during my Faulkner episodes. Audiobooks saved my relationship with reading after years of grading papers destroyed my eyesight and patience. Used to think audiobooks were "cheating" - now I've listened to more classics than I ever read in grad school. The irony isn't lost on me. I listen while walking the lakefront with my wife Denise, grading papers at 11PM, and pretending to pay attention at faculty meetings. Principal Martinez, if you're reading this, I was definitely listening to your budget presentation. (I wasn't. I was listening to Middlemarch.) I believe great narration is performance art. A good narrator doesn't just read - they interpret. I listen at 1.0x because "the author chose those words" and I choose to hear them properly. My students think I'm ancient for this take. They're not wrong about the ancient part.