About Me

Karen Trotter Elley is a freelance writer, comedian, speaker and author.  While she was still in elementary school, Karen’s first story was published in the Cumberland Electric Membership Corporation magazine and she was hooked. Her high school English teacher said she would either become a writer or a teacher.

Instead, she became a layout artist in the Creative Services department of the Tennessean newspaper. After gaining some valuable experience, Karen was hired as the advertising manager for Morris Furniture Stores and later, John F. Lawhon Furniture Stores. Then she moved on to Harveys, an independent chain of department stores, where she was promoted to manager of the department. During that time she wrote advertising copy, a couple of thank you notes and an occasional grocery list.    

At the age of 40, the writing bug bit again. This time she stuck with it and was rewarded by seeing her words in print and her name on checks. Karen honed her writing skills with freelance assignments for radio, TV, and magazines and was the winner of first prize in an annual fiction-writing contest for a Wisconsin magazine.  

Her inspirational essays have been published in newspapers across the country including the Toledo Blade, the Tennessean, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Karen’s freelance clients included Buddy Killen Enterprises, Active Lifestyles, the Tennessean, the Murfreesboro Daily News Sunday Magazine and Southern Women’s Shows.   

In 2006, Karen collaborated with several other screenwriters on “Following Reason,” a 48- Hour Film Project 7-minute, award-winning short film. As a result, she was asked to join a group of writers hired to create a dramaedy TV pilot and 3 episodes for a local producer. For a while, she lived her dream of putting words in other people’s mouths.  

Two years ago, one of Karen’s uplifting essays, “The Messenger” was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Touched by an Angel, a collection of 101 miraculous stories of faith, divine intervention, and answered prayers.  These true stories remind us to heed our inner voice and pay attention to the messages that come your way.  

For more than 12 years, Karen was employed as a production designer and writer at BookPage (America’s Book Review), a national, monthly publication of interviews and book reviews. During her sojourn there, she interviewed several famous authors, including Julie Garwood, Fern Michaels and Nora Roberts.   

Inspired by their success, she polished and published her first novel, Bliss: An Adult Fairy Tale, a sci fi romance, fantasy, spiritual allegory otherwise known as a paranormal romance.  

It is the mythic story of Bliss, a spiritual teacher on the distant planet Arias, who falls for Gabrielle one of his pupils, and incarnates to be with his beloved. Due to a misunderstanding, the love affair suddenly ends as quickly as it had begun. Emotionally devastated, Bliss seeks revenge and becomes the ultimate cosmic Casanova. Equipped with chameleon and telepathic abilities, Bliss is adept at reading a woman’s mind, discovering her dream lover and shape shifting into that identity.  

Embarking on a thrilling spree, he seduces Cassandra, a powerful sorceress and learns about the wrath of a woman scorned. She places a curse on Bliss, forcing him to feed on the heightened emotions of women in the throes of sexual ecstasy. In a short span, Bliss becomes an emotional vampire, forever seeking the fix he must have to slake his hunger and prolong his life.  

Bliss is a starving being headed for a banquet—Earth.  

Once there, he finds more than he bargained for in the arms of Victoria, a beautiful psychic.   

Seeking redemption, Bliss employs astral travel, time travel and cryogenics on a journey through time and space to face the truth about his dark past and the consequences of his actions.   

Karen Trotter Elley is in the process of writing her memoir and dreaming about a possible sequel to Bliss.  

Claim your Bliss at Amazon.com. today.