Danielle Teller, author of All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella’s Stepmother, sits down with author Liese O'Halloran Schwarz to discuss her new novel and the complexities that lie beneath classic tales of good and evil.

We all know the story of Cinderella….or do we? In the vein of Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, Teller’s book is a luminous re-imagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella’s "evil" stepmother.

Danielle Teller grew up in Canada. In 1994, she moved to America, and she has been living here ever since. She became a physician and has held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard University, where she investigated the origins of chronic lung disease and taught in the medical intensive care unit. In 2013, Danielle quit her job to pursue her childhood dream of being a writer. She lives with her husband, Astro Teller, and their four children in Palo Alto, California.

Liese O’Halloran Schwarz, a former emergency-medicine doctor, published her first novel Near Canaan while in medical school. Her most recent novel is The Possible World, and she currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

At the program, we will also have a preview of UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum new exhibit, Dread & Delight: Fairy Tales in an Anxious World. This exhibition brings together the work of contemporary artists who use classical fairy tales to address the complexities of our lives today. While some embrace the stories’ promises of transformation and happy endings, others plumb the stories’ more troubling elements—poverty, addiction, and exploitation of power.

A book signing for both authors will follow the program.