Forged: A Novel

by Danielle Teller

(Pegasus Books, 6 May 2025)

Interview by Anna Roins

 A thrilling and immersive tale of an woman turned con-artist by the critically acclaimed author of All the Ever Afters

In the Gilded Age, a time of abject poverty and obscene wealth, a desperate and ambitious young woman strikes out for a new life in the rising industrial cities of America. Naive Fanny is thrust into a Darwinian world where she is cast out and preyed upon, but she’s a survivor and quickly learns from her struggles. Thanks to her close observations of the mercenary actors around her, Fanny discovers the power of illusion and how it can overcome the immutability of social class and the ruthless rules of capitalism.

Shedding her past, Fanny embarks on a darkly thrilling transformation. She becomes Kitty Warren—a forger, con artist, and thief. Exploiting the greed and self-regard of the powerful, Kitty builds her own castle in the sky, yet she finds real pleasure and fulfilment elusive, and soon her foundations start to crumble. With schemes more wicked than Jay Gatsby’s, yet with more humanity than Tom Ripley, Kitty Warren exposes the dark heart of the American dream, making Forged a gripping narrative and a parable for the ages.

(*The following is a general transcription from an audio interview on 27.3.25)

AUTHORLINK: Hello and welcome to AUTHORLINK, Danielle! We are delighted to have the opportunity to discuss your latest book, FORGED: A NOVEL. Tell us a little about it.

TELLER: Thank you! I’m happy to be here. It’s about Kitty Warren, who hit some pretty hard times, and was cast out and preyed upon, until she manages to, by using her wit and charm, to get out of these situations and ultimately climbs the social ladder as a con artist and uses forgery and trickery to defraud the rich and powerful.

 AUTHORLINK: She sounds like a real dynamic woman. What inspired you to write about a person like her?

TELLER: I was originally inspired by a real-life character, Cassie Chadwick, whom I learned about when listening to a history podcast and found out that she was a Canadian woman, and as I am a Canadian woman, my ears pricked up! I was interested in the fact that she became the most successful con artist of her time. She was actually just a horrible human being. You know, like most, maybe all con artists, she took advantage of vulnerable people, and she was a bit of a psychopath. So I just didn’t want to tell her story, like, the whole story of her life, but I used that as inspiration for this story.

And I also feel like The Great Gatsby was inspiring. We talk a lot about the American Dream which was very relevant to FORGED, but we also don’t really hear a lot about Gatsby’s criminal background and don’t focus too much on that. He himself was a con artist who built a fake identity. And so I wanted to play with that as well.

AUTHORLINK: That’s so interesting. So, you were inspired by the ‘Great Gatsby’s’ criminal background, as well?

TELLER: Yeah, he started out poor, and he gave himself a more patrician name to try to sound like he was born into the upper class. It’s not super clear in the book everything he did. He was a bootlegger of alcohol. I think that’s pretty clear. And he probably also either forged bonds or somehow illegally sold bonds. There’s references to that. And I just think it’s interesting that the fact that he was a criminal is not something we associate all that much with the book. It’s an interesting facet.

 

AUTHORLINK: Yes, absolutely. We really enjoy, as our readers do, how you are reinventing or at least reintroducing other concepts to the standard tropes, such as those seen in The Great Gatsby.

TELLER:  I don’t know whether the author knew criminals himself, but I thought it was interesting, like, he had the choice to have Gatsby make his money by legitimate means. And I think part of that is sort of showing the hollowness behind the American dream of ‘making it big’. It’s having him be a fake-rich person, I think, really adds to the story. I mean, I think he was fake-rich. He actually had the money, but you know what I mean, that he got there by trickery and not through hard work and elbow grease.

AUTHORLINK: Yes, interesting. We see what you mean. You are the author of two fiction novels, ‘All the Ever Afters’ and now FORGED: A NOVEL and one non-fiction book, ‘Sacred Cows’. However, before your writing career, you attended Queen’s University during your undergraduate years, and you received medical training at McGill University, Brown University and Yale University! You also held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University, where you investigated the origins of chronic lung disease and taught in the medical intensive care unit. What a fantastic career! Just briefly, what inspired you to study chronic lung disease?

TELLER: In my clinic, I saw patients who had a disease called pulmonary fibrosis, which we don’t know what causes it. And it’s a terrible disease. The lungs just get all stirred up. Asbestos can actually cause the same kind of or similar scarring of the lungs. But in that case, we know what it’s coming from. In what they call an ‘idiopathic case’, we don’t. Organ scarring is the way that all organs fail in the end.

And so I thought it was just a really important area of study and also an interesting disease since we had zero idea what caused it. I really enjoyed my work, both the research work and the clinical work, seeing patients, it was satisfying and interesting. The third part of the job, I didn’t love. You know, every job has got some red tape and some annoyances.

I probably would still be doing it, except that I moved California from Massachusetts to be with my now husband as we were blending our families. It was complicated because everyone except me was either in the Bay Area, in California, or wanted to be.

So I moved. And then I had to try to find a new job and I couldn’t find something that is so interesting.

It was actually my husband who said, ‘You know, you’ve always wanted to write, so maybe this is the universe telling you to.’

AUTHORLINK: What a lovely husband! How did it feel to move from the medical field to writing and to just trust him? How was it to be so successful academically and career-wise and then to go in a completely other direction?

TELLER: Yeah, I’m very grateful. It was emotionally challenging, especially at the beginning, because I think we all identify somewhat with our careers, but doctors perhaps more so than most. It really felt like a big part of my identity, and I had never not worked and supported myself financially. And as I’m sure you know, writing books doesn’t pay very well. So, yeah, I sort of had to forge my own new identity as a writer and feel comfortable that this is what I do now, this is who I am.

But I’m so grateful for it because I could have continued done more of what I had been doing for another decade and a half or so. But this gave me the opportunity to try something totally different, you know, to use my brain in a different way and to get to know a whole new industry and meet new people. There’s a lot of sunk cost, right? I think they call it a ‘sunk cost fallacy’ for a reason. Because this idea that, ‘oh, I spent all of these years stuffing my head full of information that is useful, and now I’m just not going to use that anymore.’

It was fantastic that my wonderful husband had faith in me, and the fact that he was willing to support us both financially was a huge, huge boon and made it possible. It was a lovely sort of necessity, because the jobs I was looking at in California at the time were not inspiring to me, and I didn’t want to just work at a job that was a lot less interesting than the one I was leaving. And also, we had four little kids at the time. So when I moved to California, they were all in elementary school, and so I also didn’t want to be commuting a long distance and we needed have somebody who was more available for the children as well. It was a whole combination of things and it wasn’t always happy or easy. But as I said, I’m really grateful that I got to have this new chapter.

AUTHORLINK:  Okay, that’s amazing. And with four little kids in tow!

TELLER: I mean, to be clear, two of the kids were my biological and two were his biological kids. So we were blending our families, and we both have exes who were doing half the parenting as well. So it wasn’t quite as crazy as it sounds!

AUTHORLINK: (Ha ha) That’s truly admirable. Before you decided to become a medical journalist or a non-fiction writer, had you ever written any fiction before this?

TELLER: Not since my youth. You know, I loved writing when I was young, when I was a kid basically. But once I started university, once I chose to go the science route, I didn’t do much writing. Now my job required a lot of grant proposal writing and scientific paper writing, so I did spend a fair amount of time writing, but not creative writing.

And then my husband and I wrote a non-fiction book around society’s attitudes towards marriage and divorce. And then I just jumped into my first novel which was about Cinderella’s stepmother. And yeah, I didn’t really have experience, although I’ve always been an avid reader. I think a great way to learn about writing is to read other people’s work. But I was a bit intimidated, I have to say, to start my own novel.

AUTHORLINK: Yes, of course. That’s understandable. So you and your husband decided to write a non-fiction book together, about marriage and divorce, ‘Sacred Cows’. Brilliant. How did you decide to write something fictional after this?

TELLER: I really love novels and I think that they are a means to communicate not just a story, but ideas, and that fascinated me. I also love diving into a novel and getting into a different world, you know, with characters who seem like real people. And I wanted to try to create that myself. I had no idea if I was any good. It was a leap of faith for sure. Although when I was a kid growing up, I had English teachers who said, “Oh, you’re going to be a writer one day.” So I think I had some aptitude, at least as a child, for it. Maybe that gave me a little bit of courage. And I also, you know, early on when my husband was trying to convince me to write, he gave me some writing exercises…So that helped too.

AUTHORLINK: Have you ever done a writing course?

TELLER: I did take a class, sort of an adult education creative writing class, at Stanford when I was first starting out.

AUTHORLINK: Remarkable. What kind of challenges did you face, if any, along the way?

TELLER:  Oh, there have been lots of challenges. I think the toughest part is that it’s so hard to get books published. There are just so many books out there, and it can be really discouraging. I wrote one novel after my first, sort of between ‘All the Ever Afters’ and FORGED, which still hasn’t been published, and my agent tried during the pandemic to find a home for it and couldn’t. The working title is Rosedale, but if it gets published, it probably will have a different title. It’s a story of two women living in Toronto at the time of the great Eastern blackout. There was, in 2003, a blackout that included the northeastern United States and parts of Canada, including Toronto and it’s about their respective lives and loves and it’s sense by the older woman that society will fall apart if we don’t follow the rules and the younger woman doesn’t follow the rules. And what they kind of discover during the blackout when things didn’t fall apart.

That’s different from my other novels. You know, this is not really historical fiction, and it’s a very, sort of, quiet story. It’s a quiet story in between the first and the third.

AUTHORLINK: That sounds wonderful. ‘Quiet’ stories are appreciated! We hope to see it published one day. Okay, so what was your first fiction novel that you ever wrote?

TELLER: The first one was ‘All the Ever Afters’.

AUTHORLINK: That’s impressive. Most authors never end up publishing their first attempt. It’s a great reimagining of the Cinderella story, with its stepsisters and stepmother.  It’s challenging being a mother to a teenage daughter, let alone a step-mother.

TELLER: Yeah, I was working through some stuff. We had four teenagers at the same time, and I was just thinking a lot about being a step parent and what trips they get in fairy tales and so on. It’s a really tough job to parent other people’s kids.

AUTHORLINK: Absolutely. So how did your children like ‘All the Ever Afters’. Did they have any feedback?

TELLER:  They haven’t read it. Only one of my four kids has read the book. Whenever they’re ready.

AUTHORLINK: Yes. Going back to your non-fiction book, you wrote ‘Sacred Cows’, a book about marriage and divorce with your lovely husband Astro. Was that an enriching experience, or was it challenging?

TELLER:  Well, the whole thing was really cathartic. The book was born from many conversations we were having during and after divorce because it’s such a gut-wrenching experience to go through, and we’re both very analytical, so we would talk about some of our preconceived notions about divorce. You know, the idea that divorce is always a failure or divorce is always bad for children or these folks in society and pulling them apart and realizing that a lot of them don’t really hold water and are, in fact, designed by society to get people married in the first place. And so he was like, oh, we need to write a book! And I said, that’s crazy. But anyway, he’s this optimistic person who thinks he can do anything. And so he convinced me that we should write this down. So we basically both threw our ideas into a bucket.

I created a document and wrote down, whenever we would be out jogging and talking, if we had an idea. I would throw it into the documents, and then I was the one who wrote it. In the end, he left that part up to me, so…But it wasn’t hard to work with him because we were mostly just having conversations. It probably would have driven me crazy if we were arguing about the actual writing.

AUTHORLINK: Bravo to both of you! Could you tell us how you found your first agent?

TELLER: Actually, it was through word of mouth. My husband and I had an agent with ‘Sacred Cows’, but who then wasn’t interested in my novel. But then I had to find a new agent, and Astro was working with somebody who was publishing a book, and he really liked Michael Carlisle, his agent. And so he introduced us, and I sent my work to Michael, and he really liked it. So that part of the process ended up being easy. And I feel really fortunate to have Michael as my agent. He’s really been devoted to getting my books published.

AUTHORLINK: He sounds great. What was the best constructive criticism you have ever received for your writing?

TELLER:  An early reader of FORGED told me that my protagonist was getting too lucky and that it’s just so much more interesting to read about a character who makes her own luck, who controls the situation more.

AUTHORLINK: Great advice. So how did you apply this feedback to the writing of your characters?

TELLER: Well, in one of my revisions of FORGED, I systematically went through and made sure that moving my character from one situation to the next didn’t happen through happenstance, but that she was doing something.

AUTHORLINK: That’s a good one. What do you find challenging about writing?

TELLER: I think the hardest part is staying focused on the work. It can be so discouraging and it’s not easy. I think keeping in mind the long game and realizing that sometimes it takes a lot of shots on goal before you finally get a goal.

But, you know, I sort of naively thought when I published ‘All the Ever Afters’, that now I have my team and it’ll be so much easier the next time. But it wasn’t. Just because an editor has been interested in one piece of your work doesn’t mean that they’re going to be interested in subsequent work. There’s been a ton of rejection along the way, and I think that’s just part of what it is to be an author these days. And so I think it takes a lot of fortitude, and you really have to soldier on and keep writing and keep your hopes up for the next one.

AUTHORLINK: That’s really encouraging for the rest of us. Was Michael Carlisle also your first reader before you sent anything out?

 

TELLER: I actually send chapters to my dad. Every time I finish a chapter, I send him one. I don’t really send it to him for feedback, but he does sometimes point out issues with it. But he’s no professional. But it’s more just that he likes to read the chapters. And it also keeps me honest. You know, when you have to send your work to somebody, he notices. If it’s a long time goes by and he doesn’t get anything, he’s like, what are you doing?

 

AUTHORLINK: Inspiring. So what are you reading now?

TELLER: Oh, I’m always reading. I’ve always got a couple of things on the go. I’ve been reading ‘Native Speaker’ by Chang-Rae Lee, and, I just finished ‘The Love Letters of Fitzgerald and Zelda’.

AUTHORLINK: We saw that you had written in a post online how much you liked, ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and the whole empire waist dress. Have you ever visited Bath to pay homage to Jane Austen?

TELLER: We visited Bath and had, you know, we toured around. I wouldn’t say it was a whole Jane Austen experience. We were also there with our children who had, you know, short attention spans.

AUTHORLINK: Understandably. What are you working on now? Can you tell us a bit about it?

 

TELLER: I’m working on a new novel that’s set in Pittsburgh in the 1980s. The relationship between the union people and the executives at Steele.

AUTHORLINK: Okay, Something completely different. What kind of themes are in the storyline?

TELLER: I love retellings, as I’m sure you can tell, based on my novels so far. And so this one has a bit of a Romeo and Juliet twist. It’s like the Montagues and the Capulets, and they’re on both sides of the tension in the steel mill because, you know, the executives and unions did not get along back in the day. So it’s a bit of a play on that theme and then trying something different. It’s humorous, so I’ve never tried that before. And it’s also multi-perspective, but we’ll see how it goes. It’s still early days. I haven’t written all that much of it yet, so we’ll see.

 AUTHORLINK: That sounds awesome. Can you tell us about your writing ritual? How do you start your working day?

TELLER: I normally get a pretty slow start in the morning. I always exercise, and I have my coffee and breakfast, and I play all the word games in the New York Times, and then I usually sit down, start writing in the late mid to late morning traditionally. But most of my writing has actually been in my backyard. We have a cute little backyard that’s nicely closed in and it just feels almost like a room that happens to be outside. And it allows me to feel like I’m leaving the house to go to work.

Although more recently, I’ve been actually leaving the house altogether for that co working space. Whatever I can do to keep myself disciplined.

AUTHORLINK: Great. Danielle, thank you so much for sharing your time with us today, discussing your latest release, FORGED: A NOVEL, and talking openly about your process. We know you will continue to be a successful author. All the best!

TELLER: Thank you. Appreciate that so much.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Danielle Teller is in her second career, writing, which involves a lot more rejection than her first career, doctoring, but the hours are much better. She still misses Canada and academics, but life as a Californian empty-nester is also pretty great. She is the author of two novels, “All the Ever Afters” and “Forged,” and is also the author of several nonfiction works, only about half of which describe unpronounceable molecules.

You can find out more about Danielle Teller at https://www.danielleteller.com/, and https://www.instagram.com/bydanielleteller/,