3-Time Emmy Award Winner
Storyteller
Taking on the World, One Story at a Time…
ABOUT KAREN SCHALER
“What Schaler has accomplished… is mind-blowing.” – Forbes
Karen Schaler is a three-time Emmy Award-winning multi-hyphenate, screenwriter, producer, bestselling author, journalist, and national TV host. She writes romantic comedies, comedies, and dramas for film, TV, and audio.
Karen has written features for Netflix, Hallmark, and Lifetime, including the Netflix Original sensation A Christmas Prince, which started the franchise.
A renaissance storytelling entrepreneur, Karen is passionate about finding new ways to bring her stories to life. One example, she turned her hit Christmas Camp Hallmark movie and books into real-life trademarked sold-out Christmas Camp experiences for grownups that she hosts at resorts, hotels, and destinations worldwide.
Karen’s new novel coming out in the fall of 2023, Every Day Is Christmas, is inspired by the beloved Lifetime holiday movie starring multi-Grammy winner Toni Braxton, Gloria Reuben, and Michael Jai White.
Audible tapped Karen to bring her screenwriting skills to write and produce a one-of-a-kind romantic comedy with a full cast of award-winning actors and musicians. Karen also wrote the original theme song. Once Upon A Christmas Carol was an instant top 10 Audible bestseller! With fans wanting more, Karen is also writing the movie, novel, and play.
Audible Originals Executive Editor Rose Hilliard says, “Karen is one of the most masterful seasonal storytellers writing today with a gift for distilling warmth and magic into profoundly uplifting storylines.”
Karen currently has multiple feature, TV, and audio projects in various stages of development. She credits her passionate and prolific writing style to her background as a national TV correspondent, where she has traveled to more than 68 countries profiling power stories about diverse cultures and ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
From being a national White House correspondent to the first journalist in the world ever embedded with an Apache helicopter unit in Afghanistan and ground troops in Bosnia to going undercover as a crime and investigative reporter to creating her own empowering Travel Therapy TV series, Karen draws from her unique life experiences for her storytelling.
Karen is passionate about constantly re-inventing new ways to bring her stories to life. After Karen wrote the original Christmas Camp movie for Hallmark, followed by Christmas Camp books for HarperCollins, she trademarked her Christmas Camp concept in ten categories.
Karen then created the first-of-its-kind real-life immersive Christmas Camp experience for grownups at hotels and destinations worldwide. Karen’s first ten-day Christmas Camp at a five-star luxury resort sold out more than 400 room nights within a half hour of announcing it on her social media.
With 300+ publishing credits, against all odds, the first story Karen ever sold was in one of the world’s most influential magazines, The New Yorker, after Karen cold queried editor David Remnick.
Karen’s exclusive report, Chest Out, Stomach In. All That You Can Be uncovered soldiers talking about a new recruiting tool. Cosmetic surgery. In all four military branches, the personnel and family members had access to unlimited free boob and nose jobs, face-lifts, liposuction, tummy tucks, the works. Hundreds of military makeovers were being done, all at taxpayers’ expense.
Karen grew up outside of Seattle and in Los Angeles and graduated with honors from California State University Fullerton with a double major in Broadcast Journalism and Sociology.
When she’s not traveling, you can find Karen in New York City, Los Angeles, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
A favorite question Karen was asked while working as a TV correspondent came from an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and author who asked her… “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”
Karen answered without hesitation. “Exactly what you’re doing…”
And Karen says that question has fueled her forward ever since.
You can watch NBC TODAY show for more of Karen’s story in two TV segments WATCH: TODAY & TODAY.
Karen is a sought-after, uplifting and empowering keynote public speaker. If you’d like to book Karen for your next event, please reach out to AAE SPEAKERS.
FACTS & STATS
As a journalist, Karen was the first TV reporter in the world embedded with a combat Apache helicopter unit in Afghanistan in 2007. She also won an Emmy for her executive producing and reporting in a one-hour documentary.
Karen was the first journalist in the world embedded with troops in Bosnia where she won an Emmy for her executive producing and reporting in a half-hour documentary.
Karen has worked as a TV correspondent on CNN, and as a reporter/anchor at ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates in major TV markets across the country.
Karen is published in The New Yorker, and has more than 500 publishing credits in national magazines, newspapers and online.
Karen is featured as one of 60 women in Marlo Thomas’s book It Ain’t Over . . . Till It’s Over: Reinventing Your Life–and Realizing Your Dreams–Anytime, at Any Age.
Karen grew up near Seattle, Washington and in Los Angeles, California. She graduated, with honors, from California State University Fullerton with a double major in Broadcast Journalism and Sociology.
Karen’s family says she started telling stories even before she could write them down and always knew exactly what she wanted to do, to be a storyteller, and has never wavered.
Karen’s favorite quote that she lives by: “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”
FOLLOW KAREN’S JOURNEY
