The lesson Danielle Teller, Artsci’90, recalls most vividly from her time at Queen’s is one she learned from failure. After she did poorly on her first chemistry midterm, she called her parents in tears.
Her father responded with a letter listing disasters in the world that year, from mudslides to earthquakes, with casualty figures. The final entry? “Danielle fails her chemistry midterm: zero.”
“I just realized: I can do this. I have to learn how to learn,” Dr. Teller recalls. “That has really stuck with me. There’s been a lot of failure since then, but I think having that first failure and then overcoming it and learning to do well in my classes was one of the most important lessons I’ve ever had.”
That wisdom has served her through life and career changes. After she graduated from Queen’s, Dr. Teller studied medicine and held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh and at Harvard University. Then a new partner and the blending of their families drew her to California and a chance for a fresh start.
“It was actually my husband who said, ‘You’ve always wanted to be a writer. You know, you don’t have to fall for this sunk-cost fallacy, where you’ve put so many years into this that you can’t stop doing it.’ It was a little scary, because being a doctor was part of my identity, and giving that up was hard … But in retrospect, I’m so glad I got this other chapter in my life.”
Writing came with its share of rejection and uncertainty, but Dr. Teller went on to publish a non-fiction book with her husband, plus two solo novels.
That ability to cope with change is a trait she shares with the protagonist of her second novel, Forged. It’s the edge-of-your-seat story of a girl who escapes poverty and abuse, leaves Canada for the United States, and survives by transforming herself into a thief, con artist, and forger named Kitty Warren.
The character was inspired by a real Canadian con woman named Cassie Chadwick, who died in 1907. Readers might also recognize the influences of Susanna Moodie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Edith Wharton.
As compelling as Kitty’s adventure is, Dr. Teller doesn’t regard her antiheroine as a good person – and she has no interest in romanticizing the Gilded Age. She says it’s important to look at history with clear eyes, with all its moral ambiguity, and draw the lessons from humanity’s failures.
“It does feel very much like we’re back in that era, with the cronyism and political corruption, the loss of workers’ rights, the diminished life expectancy, the pollution of the environment … And it’s just breaking my heart to be seeing this happening again.”
is available from Pegasus Books.
