Alumni Book Nook: Dr. Ted Leighton (Sc’75, DVM’79)

Dr. Frederick (Ted) Leighton (Sc’75, DVM’79), a University of Saskatchewan (USask) graduate and professor emeritus, has written his second novel, Knowers and Lovers. Published by Moose House Publications in November 2024, the book is a sequel to Leighton’s 2022 novel, A Ring of Justice.

Leighton earned a certificate in biology in USask’s College of Arts and Science in 1975 before becoming a 1979 Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) graduate of USask’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM). He then went on to earn his PhD degree in experimental pathology at Cornell University before becoming a faculty member in the WCVM’s Department of Veterinary Pathology, where he focused on teaching, diagnostic pathology, and wildlife disease research.

In 2021, Leighton was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada—one of the country’s highest civilian honours. Also in 2021, he was included among 135 USask researchers on a Stanford University list that named the world’s most cited and top researchers within their disciplines. In addition to his WCVM roles, Leighton served as the former executive director and co-founder of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC, previously known as the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre). He retired as a WCVM professor and stepped down as the CWHC executive director in 2014 and now writes and lives in Bear River, N.S.

The Green&White asked Leighton about his new novel and what inspired him to write it.

In Knowers and Lovers, I try to provide readers with a good and credible story that is pleasing to read but also probes the nature of greed and hubris, where these lurk in human affairs and the harm they cause, and contrasts them with the powerful alternatives of friendship and mutual care. Rural living in small communities is the background tapestry, its fine points as well as its rough edges. An environmental theme pervades the work, and poetry finds a place as well—W.B. Yeats lurks in Nova Scotia’s forests and the last word goes to Walt Whitman.

From the forest, fields, and seacoasts of Digby County, Nova Scotia, to board rooms in Russia, situation rooms at NATO, and piracy on the high seas, Knowers and Lovers is the second novel in my Rick Robichaud series, and it continues the saga of Rick, his wife, veterinarian Zora Cromwell, and their now one-year-old daughter, Bronwyn.

I have had one foot in natural science and one in the humanities right from high school; my first university degree was in theatre arts (Cornell 1970). Upon retirement from active science, I wanted to step more firmly into the humanities again, to see if I could write fiction in a way meaningful to myself and to others and to explore the similarities and differences between writing science, or about science, and writing fiction.

Yes. My novels make extensive use of natural science, natural history, and veterinary medicine, and my formal education in all of these was at (USask). 

High adventure, community, love, greed, contentment.

Both novels are good, page-turner stories with interesting and diverse characters who confront life’s big challenges while also finding much good in the world.