Varla Ventura

writer, traveler, lover of the strange

Varla Ventura

I am the author of Fairies, Pookas and Changelings: A Complete Guide to the Wild and Wicked Enchanted Realm, The Book of the Bizarre; Beyond Bizarre; Among the Mermaids; and Banshees, Werewolves, Vampires & Other Creatures of the Night. I am a lover of all things truly strange and freaky, and spend a good deal of my time reading and researching stories of the unusual variety. I live in the North Woods where all manner of things tap, tap, tap at my windowpane at all hours of the night.

I Am an Android

And I’m a tablet, and an iPad and all kinds of other robotic things. Freaky stories available now as apps for your devices! Including awesome bonus things like interviews with me!   My publisher just released the following information:   Dare to explore the dark side with this superbly disquieting collection of tales featured in […]

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Reginald and His Goblins Mix it Up with Church of Mabus’ Jeffery Pritchett

You may recall my earlier review and interview with the one and only Reginald Bakeley, author of Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop.  I’ll be straight with you: Reginald is a scamp. He knows more about the fairy kingdom than any one I know, and he has the gift of the second sight. But if you ask

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Ring in the New Year with Murderous Bells: A Very Happy Hour of Horrors

The usual gaiety of chiming bells ringing in the New Year might sound a little more sinister once you get through this short little eBook, selected by me from a collection of fairy and folklore by Welsh “Grimm” William Wirt Sikes. Don’t walk into that churchyard or a schoolhouse without a hard-hat! There are more

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Scandanavian Trolls and Dickens’ Ghosts~A Holiday Themed Happy Hour of Horrors

What young child doesn’t love the din of Christmas? The lights in shop windows and holiday hum, a promise of bellies full of cookies and piles of presents. And when most of us think of Christmas we think of a bearded man in a red suit, jolly and adept at delivering toys. We accept his

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Varla Ventura’s Gruesome and Ghoulish Gift Guide for the Holidays

Over the weekend I was haunting my local Haight Street shops and went into one of my favorites: Cheap Thrills. This store is like what Hot Topic wishes it could be. It’s packed full with everything from tiny rubber chickens to Day of the Dead skull dresses. The Baby Ventura (whom I should really start

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Saturday Night Special~Church of Mabus!

Hey Freaks! Whatcha’ doin Saturday night? Want to get into the “spirit” of Christmas? Join me on Church of Mabus radio.  Hosts Jeffery Pritchett & Erica Goetsch are ripe and ready to discuss Christmas trolls, Krampus, terrifying creatures of the night, little men you should beware of, freaky facts, dark and strormys and so much

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Taming the White Rabbit~A 99 Cent Happy Hour of Horrors

Pooka, phooka, puka. No matter how you spell it the shape shifting beastie, most commonly appearing in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, often takes the form of a black horse or a white rabbit. Even Lewis Carroll’s white rabbit was a pooka of sorts. They trick you, they lead you in the wrong direction, you are

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Unicorns are Real (Or They Were, Anyway)

Recent headlines in Korea settle the myth vs. reality debate once and for all! Unicorns are REAL, or at least they were once upon a time. According to  the Korean News Agency: Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King

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