The Warble
The Official Blog of Karen Ullo
Cinder Allia is leaving Kindle Unlimited
Remember that nifty award I mentioned in my last blog post? Well, it means libraries want to stock my book, and in order to receive royalties from those purchases, I can’t have it on exclusive through Kindle Unlimited. If you’re a KU subscriber, you have until December 21 to read Cinder Allia for free through that platform. After that, try your local library!
The Indie Author Project–I Won!!!
I could not be more honored to announce that Cinder Allia, the little fairy tale that could, has been named the winner of the Indie Author Project for the state of Louisiana.
The Indie Author Project is sponsored and judged by librarians in 15 states and 2 Canadian provinces to recognize the best independently published books and help get them into library collections across the US and Canada. The award includes a cash prize as well as a feature in Library Journal. I’m so grateful to the East Baton Rouge Parish Library–who have carried both Cinder Allia and Jennifer the Damned since they were released, and who sent me the information to enter the contest–as well as to all those involved in the Indie Author Project. You can read more about the project and see the complete list of statewide winners here.
There is a national contest to which the book now proceeds, so cross your fingers for me. And don’t forget that the movie version of Cinder Allia is still in development, so stay tuned!
What’s the Through-Line? Writing across genres and what binds my work together
When people ask me what I write, I often joke that I’m incapable of writing the same genre twice. After all, my novels thus far include contemporary Gothic horror, fairy tale/ fantasy, and historical fiction. If you look back into my screenwriting days, you can add sci-fi time travel and contemporary drama to the list.
So, am I just a dilettante who can’t make up her mind? Or is there something else going on that binds my work together–something deeper than mere genre?
One of my professors once told me that my “thing” was characters who excel at something, who are above average–even geniuses–in some way. He wasn’t wrong. My characters do tend to stand out from the crowd in thoughts as well as actions. But as I’ve continued to write and grow, I’ve found another through-line, something perhaps a little more unique: I love to juxtapose things and ideas that most people would say don’t belong together. Jennifer the Damned is about a vampire who lives in a convent; Cinder Allia is a fairy tale where Prince Charming dies on page one; and To Crown with Liberty follows the same character through both the French Revolution and a journey into the Louisiana swamps.
These things don’t go to together…which is why they work.
Ultimately, I think this insistence on putting together very disparate things comes out of my identity as a Catholic. The word “catholic” means universal. All people, all things belong to God, and by juxtaposing elements that seem like they should not be put together, I can widen my own view of the universal world, and hopefully do the same for my readers. Because ultimately, nothing is separate. There is nothing that doesn’t belong to the Catholic imagination because there is nothing that does not belong to God.
Saints for History’s Darkest Times
The darkest times of history often bring forth the greatest saints.
In the course of writing To Crown with Liberty, I noticed entirely too many similarities between our own era and the years leading up to the French Revolution. I wrote a scene about mob violence, and then lo and behold, mobs took to the streets to protest the killing of George Floyd. I wrote about the storming of Versailles, and mere months later watched the storming of the U.S. Capitol live on TV. Perhaps creepiest of all, I started a chapter with the sentence, “After the plague came the war”—shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine. It didn’t inspire me with hope.
But it should have.
No one wants to live through social upheaval, war, persecution, genocide. But before God formed us in the womb, He knew us, and He knew the time and place in which we would live, including the particular evils that would afflict the age. Would St. Joan of Arc have been called to such great holiness if France had not been at war? Would St. Maximillian Kolbe, whose feast day is today, have died as an obscure Polish cleric if there had been no Auschwitz? How many of the 191 Holy September Martyrs would have died as sinners if the French Revolution never happened?
God has a plan for each of us, and He will use the evils of the world to sanctify us if we allow Him to. And He will use us to heal those evils too.
Pray for me, readers, as I will pray for you.
Recent Comments