Danielle Teller is the author of All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella’s Stepmother.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea of retelling Cinderella from her stepmother's perspective?Visit Danielle Teller's website.
A: When I became a stepmother, I was surprised by how difficult it was to get comfortable in that role. My stepkids and I had to slowly build trust and affection over time.
At first, they chafed under my parental rules and mourned the loss of freewheeling weekends with their dad. I felt as though my stepchildren didn’t want me around except to fulfill their various physical needs; I joked that I was a “ghost-servant.”
I worried that no matter what I did, my stepchildren would never see me as a net positive in their lives, and that got me thinking about the bad reputation of stepmothers in fairy tales.
What if those stories were inspired by real people who weren’t evil but struggling in a fraught relationship with other imperfect human beings? From that...[read on]
Writers Read: Danielle Teller.
The Page 69 Test: All the Ever Afters.
My Book, The Movie: All the Ever Afters.
--Marshal Zeringue