Karen is a unique author as she is also an editor, a trained soprano who has written a vampire novel, a modern telling of a classic fairy tale, a historical novel about Marie Antoinette and has something in common with a rabbit. In the world of writing she is like a red rubber ball or a Gummi bear bouncing here and there and everywhere in the world of writing.
If your a writer or a lover of books I think your going to want to…
Meet Trained Soprano, Editor and Vampire Writer Karen Ullo
1. Tell something interesting about yourself.
I’m a classically trained soprano with a master’s degree in screenwriting. I can also wiggle my nose like a rabbit.
2. What makes a good Catholic writer?
It may seem obvious, but a good Catholic writer is both a good Catholic and a good writer—that is, someone who makes a real effort to grow in both holiness and the writing craft, following the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Just as faith should inform one’s writing, the act of writing—especially writing fiction—should inform one’s faith because fiction probes the depths of the human soul and its capacities for good and evil. The first person the Spirit touches with a story is the author, and being open to what He wants to share—how he wants you to grow through the work—is as essential as learning how to write good dialogue or craft a good scene.
3. What do you like about being a Catholic/Christian Writer?
God allows us to participate in His creativity in myriad ways. While the most powerful is the marital union that produces children, I’m so grateful that He also gives us the ability to create entire worlds, universes, and human beings through stories. God spoke the world into being; storytellers do the same. When we do it in participation with God’s holy will, then despite our human frailty and the work’s inevitable imperfections, the result will be something we can look upon and say, “It is good.”
4. What is the main focus of your particular writing or what do you like to write about?
I have three award-winning novels in three different genres (Jennifer the Damned, Cinder Allia, and To Crown with Liberty), plus screenplays and short stories. I’ve also published dozens of articles, essays, and reviews across multiple outlets in multiple countries. I’m the editorial director of Chrism Press and former managing editor of Dappled Things Magazine. To say that my interests are wide-ranging is a bit of an understatement, but I’m best known for speculative and historical fiction.
Vampires are supposed to be beautiful. In novels they are always sleek and elegant, with cold but perfect ivory skin, comporting themselves with ease among the crème de la crème, their piercing eyes seducing victims with a glance. In novels, vampires do not have acne – which goes to show how much novelists know.
5. How does your Catholic Faith influence your writing?
This is difficult to answer because the two are so intimately connected, it’s like asking, “How does oxygen affect your body?” Without my faith, my writing would shrivel and die. Oxygen has obvious effects that the non-medical person can name, like enabling metabolism and organ function. Similarly, I can point to obvious Catholic elements in some of my work, like the depiction of the Holy September Martyrs in To Crown with Liberty. But just as I don’t fully understand the biochemistry of oxygen, I don’t fully understand how my faith and writing interact. I sometimes write stories with no overtly Catholic elements at all—but I still know that without faith, I could not write them. Faith is oxygen. You don’t have to be conscious of it at every moment for it to do its work within you. At the same time, it’s important to be aware that it is at work so you don’t cut off the supply.
6. What’s your favorite article/Post/book/story you have written?
My favorite novel is To Crown with Liberty, which is the story of a former lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette who flees the Terror for the bayous of Spanish colonial Louisiana, where she fights to find a home in a hostile New World. It takes place on both sides of the Atlantic and represents more than four years of writing and meticulous research.
My Favorite article—which is still the most-visited page on my website even though I wrote it in 2018—is “Horror, Abuse Scandals, and the Hunchback of Notre-Dame,” originally published by Dappled Things.
I have gone on record many times (most recently here) to promote the particular genius of the horror genre as a tool through which Christians can confront the realities of evil and (when the genre is at its best) defy them through Christ’s love, either explicitly or implicitly. So, when I read the article “Now is a Perfect Time for Catholic Horror” by Stephen Wingate, in which he calls for a revival of the Catholic horror novel as a means of confronting the recent abuse scandals, I naturally agreed that he was on to something. But until such time as modern writers are able to produce work that engages the “difficult literary interrogation between Catholicism and evil… [and] provides a necessary look into how the church has become the horror for some,” we would do well to remember that Victor Hugo already gave us such a novel. More and more, it seems to me that The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a book for our times.
7. What is your favorite topic/subject to write about?
I bounce all over the place but always come back to the intersection of faith and fiction. My current soap box is about the metaphysics of Catholic and Christian storytelling.
8. Favorite scripture verse.
I have two. They’re both from St. Paul.
“Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” Romans 12:2
“Test everything; retain what is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21
9. What are you currently working on?
I’m always looking for a new challenge, and one thing I’ve never written is a sequel. So I’m working on a sequel to my second novel, Cinder Allia, a Cinderella retelling in which Prince Charming dies in battle on page 1. The sequel is called Waking Beauty, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but instead of a spell that puts a princess to sleep, the princess accidentally casts a spell that puts everyone else in the palace to sleep, leaving her to try to save them.
10. Name a favorite saint or Catholic or some other figure who inspires you in your life.
My confirmation saint, sister, and heavenly best friend is St. Maria Goretti. I wear her medal, which is also a third-class relic, nearly every day. I’m a firm believer that our saint friends choose us, not the other way around, and Maria has made this abundantly clear in my life. She chose me, then ushered in a lot of her friends—and I’m forever grateful.
11. Who is your favorite living writer?
That’s not a fair question since I’m an editor. If I pick one of the authors from Chrism Press, all the others will be mad at me. But if you want a whole collection of living writers whose work I love, just head over to our website. I have personally worked on every project in some capacity, and I can vouch for the beauty and quality of every single book. I don’t love them because they’re Chrism Press books—they’re Chrism Press books because I and the other editors loved them, and we chose to publish them.
12. If you could have lunch with any deceased writer, who would it be, what would you eat, and what would you talk about?
St. John the Evangelist. We’d have fresh fish (maybe Peter and Andrew caught it) with bread, and I’d ask every possible question about Jesus’ life on earth—and also what Lazarus said about being dead after he was raised. In other words, Editor Karen would ask him to add the scenes and details he left out of his manuscript. 😉
13. Name a favorite movie/tv show or music you find worth sharing with others.
The most recent Knives Out movie, Wake Up, Dead Man, was not only a good mystery but a surprisingly fair and sympathetic portrayal of faith—both false faith that seeks to manipulate and true faith that seeks to serve. A few scenes are over the top with graphic descriptions of lewd acts, so it’s not for sensitive audiences, but overall, very good.
14. Can you see one of your books being made into a movie or tv series?
I’m a screenwriter, so yes. All my books draw heavily on that training, and I’ve sold the film rights to Cinder Allia.
15. Favorite historical event.
I have to say the French Revolution, considering how deeply I researched it for To Crown with Liberty. Most Americans know very little about it, which is greatly to our detriment, not only because it represents a pivotal moment in the history of Western civilization, but because the same heresies and idolatries that led to the Terror are alive and thriving in our own society—and sometimes our own hearts. But if you asked me to go back in time, I would not choose Revolutionary France. I’d watch the Wright Brothers take off from Kittyhawk, or become a fly on the wall while Mozart is composing, or something more fun than seeing the jaws of the guillotine consume a nation.
This interview was published on April 15, 2026
The day these events took place
1755 – Samuel Johnson‘s A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London.
1865 – President Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth.[13] Three hours later, Vice President Andrew Johnson is sworn in as president.
1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,224 passengers and crew on board survive.
1947 – Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball’s color line.
1955 – McDonald’s restaurant dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois.
16. What else do you want people to know about anything?
I love hearing from readers! Please come hang out with me online, whether that’s through my website, Substack, Facebook, Instagram, and/ or Chrism Press, which has a newsletter and socials too.
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