Blog Archives
Tea’s Weird Week: My Favorite Moments from Milwaukee Paranormal Conference 2021

My name is Tea Krulos– I’m a journalist, author, tour guide, podcast host, and I founded the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference in 2015. The event took place this year September 24-26 and was sponsored by American Ghost Walks. It was a great time– the conference weekend is always kind of a whirlwind for me, but I had some really nice moments I wanted to share.
Friday Sept. 24: Paranormal Party Time
The conference officially begins with Paranormal Party Time at Faklandia Brewing. We were supposed to have activities on their patio, but rain came in and I had one of those stressful oh shit, everything is ruined moments. But I found myself surrounded by a great crew of people from American Ghost Walks, Tea’s Weird Week, and other assorted friends, standing around and drinking in the rain trying to figure out what to do. We rearranged some stuff and did a Ghost Story Open Mic, trivia, and a performance by Sunspot.

You can hear a recording of the Ghost Story Open Mic session here: Tea‘s Weird Week Special: Ghost Story Open Mic 2021 (podbean.com)
Oh, and our volunteer Judy baked a UFO-themed cake for the event because it was birthday weekend for both of us! She also showed up at the conference the next day in an outfit inspired by the Flatwoods Monster. Amazing! My friend Hillarie Higgins also made me some ghost cookies!
Saturday Sept. 25: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference at Alverno College (also my birthday)
-The morning of the conference is always a mad scramble. That’s just the way it is. But while scrambling, I was just so glad to see familiar faces of people I haven’t seen in awhile and to be able to meet some cool new people, too. The vendor floor was a great mix and we had a nice line-up of guest speakers. We tried to focus on Wisconsin-centric stories this year, everything from local ghost stories to Bigfoot sightings. Shetan Noir kicked things off with a talk on the “Lake Michigan Triangle” to a full house of people! Other Speakers included Baranaby from CAPS, Amelia Cotter, Allison Jornlin, Stacy Schuerman, Mike Huberty, Noah Leigh, J. Nathan Couch, and Jeff from Badgerland Legends.
– At 11AM Milwaukee Krampus Eigenheit, a group of local Krampus enthusiasts, was supposed to give a presentation but couldn’t make it. I stepped in to talk about the Milwaukee Krampusnacht event (Dec. 5, Bavarian Bierhaus). Rather than yammer on, I just showed this great video our friends at Haunt Collective put together after our first event and some photos from our 2019 event (taken by Troy Freund Photography). There was great enthusiasm for the event– it’s going to be the best holiday celebration in Milwaukee!
-At noon Mike Huberty was set to give a presentation on the urban legend of Haunchyville but was hung up for a minute helping with tech in the other room, so I told the people waiting for him that Mike would be along in a minute to “talk about a little place called Haunchyville?” Now that’s a good joke! (Get it? Because Haunchyville is an urban legend about a secret village of angry little people in Muskego? Ah, nevermind.)
Donovan Scherer of Studio Moonfall also created this fabulous Haunchyville coloring sheet to give out at the talk:

-Throughout the day, I signed a few books for people. It’s always a great feeling to get a book into the hands of a reader instead of sitting in a box somewhere. You can find out more about my books here: teakrulos.com/about
-The Tea’s Weird Week Live panel happened at 1pm. Me and Heidi hosted a panel that included Goddess Adia, Hillarie Higgins, J. Nathan Couch, and Donna Lea Wells Fink. Before we called guests up, me and Heidi discussed one item– that the latest paranormal investigator to explore the famously haunted Pfister Hotel was…Megan Thee Stallion, staying there because she was performing at Summerfest. I told Heidi that wasn’t a surprise because she had sung on “WAP,” which obviously stood for “Weird, Abnormal Phenomena.” Hey c’mon, that was a good one! But a very fun time. I gave out about a dozen gifts to the audience– books, a bat kite, hot sauce, and swag packs.
You can listen to the panel here: Tea‘s Weird Week, S3 ep03: Live from the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference (podbean.com)
-American Ghost Walks also did a panel with Mike Huberty, Allison Jornlin, Wendy and Scott Markus, and Carrie Postuma. We recorded it so you can listen here: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference American Ghost Walks Panel (podbean.com)
-Thanks to everyone who attended, our guest speakers and vendors, and our dedicated volunteers!
-Kinda nice– after the conference we didn’t have a live event this year, so I went home and got into pajamas to watch livestreams– Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee investigated the Cedarburg History Museum and American Ghost Walks livestreamed from the Brumder Mansion.
Sunday Sept. 26: Activity Day
-At 10am I arrived at Forest Home Cemetery where the day was starting with a Yoga in the Cemetery session. It was an absolutely beautiful day for it and when I arrived I found about 20 yogis ready to enjoy the morning. I really wish I could have participated, but I had to keep er movin.

-By Noon I was in Riverwest to drop by the MPC Poetry Open Mic at the Jazz Gallery Center for the Arts. It was MC’d by Kavon Cortex-Jones, one of the most talented poets in the city. Meanwhile, my friend Kelly Teague hosted a Pop-up Death Cafe at Grant Park (which is supposed to be haunted) and I hear that went really well.

-2pm, Wisconsin’s leading mafia expert Gavin Schmitt gave a talk at the Bay View Community Center, a perhaps lesser known but great event space. I stopped in and Gavin signed a couple books for me. He was a great addition to the conference this year.
-We had Third Ward and Waukesha American Ghost Walks and a Forest Home Cemetery “Art and Symbolism” tours going on at 3, but I headed over to the Witches Faire at Faklandia Brewing, set up by Heidi Erickson and friends. It featured vendors and workshops and it was the perfect day for it. There were many beautiful witches there, so I just hung out with a drink in the warm September sun and enjoyed hanging out with them.
-And holy smokes, another birthday cake, this time a Bigfoot-themed, baked by witches! If there was a spell baked into it, it was a good one!
-I didn’t make it to the last event of the day, a Milwaukee Twisted Dreams Film Fest presentation of Lake Michigan Monster at Shaker’s Cigar Bar. I hear it was fun!
Milwaukee Paranormal Conference will return next year. Milwaukee Krampusnacht is Dec. 5 at Bavarian Bierhaus.
If you want to help support us, we have some leftover merch. Artist Estephanie Mendoza did the fantastic designs this year. Check out our shirts (we especially got a lot of XL left), buttons, and stickers on our Square store: milwaukee-para-con.square.site There’s also donation buttons on the Square site as well as a PayPal donation link here: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/mkeparacon
Your support is appreciated!
Please Clap Dept.: I was featured in MKE Lifestyle Magazine in an article titled “The Season of Supernatural,” which features interviews with me and colleagues Linda S. Godfrey and Anna Lardinois. Here’s what they say about me:
“Local treasure Tea Krulos enjoys delving into the fringe side of social movements, oddball personalities and the supernatural. With a quick wit and measured tone, the Milwaukee author and journalist gleefully blogs and chats about our strange world and the paranormal in his “Tea’s Weird Week” column and podcast.”
Did you hear that? LOCAL TREASURE.

Tea’s Weird Week, S3 ep03: Live from the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference: Tea and Heidi lead a panel live at the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference with special guests Goddess Adia, Hillarie Higgins, J. Nathan Couch, and Donna Lea Wells Fink. Plus a paranormal trivia question from Miss Information and a great spooky season track from Sunspot, “Spend the Night.”
Listen here: Tea‘s Weird Week, S3 ep03: Live from the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference (podbean.com)
Spotify//Soundcloud//Google Podcasts//iHeartRadio//PlayerFM//Apple//Stitcher//Pocket Casts

Tea’s Weird Week: 2019 Review e-book
Tea’s Weird Week: 2019 Review
A collection of the “Tea’s Weird Week” column from author Tea Krulos which shares his research, adventures, and stories from his personal life. Krulos writes about his favorite topics– the paranormal, bizarre subcultures, conspiracy theory, folklore, and more. Krulos shares stories from his youth, books he’s reading, as well as encounters with Flat Earthers, Krampus, Real Life Superheroes, Mad Max fans, Transhumanists, and other interesting people.
This collection contains all 26 “Tea’s Weird Week” columns from 2019 as well as 4 bonus articles he freelanced for other publications. Make your week a little weirder with this funny and informative round up of Krulos’s life and times.
Available on Kindle for $1.99/ free on Kindle Unimited: CLICK HERE
On Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49238699-tea-s-weird-week
Monster Hunters, First Review: Booklist
Booklist is a publication of book reviews produced by the American Library Association “and is widely viewed as offering the most reliable reviews to help libraries decide what to buy and to help library patrons and students decide what to read, view, or listen to,” according to their website.
Well then, thanks for giving this nice review of Monster Hunters!
Booklist—May 15, 2015
The most important thing you need to know about this book is that it doesn’t take a stance on the existence of UFOs, lake monsters, the chupacabra, ghosts, or Bigfoot. Proving or disproving that these phenomena exist or don’t isn’t his mission. His plan is simply to follow the investigators, or “monster hunters,” as he calls them, along with some skeptics, to see what makes them tick, to find out why they believe so passionately in what they are doing. Krulos introduces us to some pretty interesting people: the curator of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine; the founder of the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee; a noted skeptical investigator; and many others. The author treats his subjects with respect and courtesy (even when there are opportunities to ridicule or dismiss them); his approach seems to be not that these are wacky people with weird beliefs, but that these are ordinary people with beliefs most of us don’t understand—all of which adds up to an informative book for skeptics and believers alike.
— David Pitt
—
Monster Hunters on Goodreads:www.goodreads.com/book/show/23398567-monster-hunters
On Amazon: LINK
On Chicago Review Press’s website: www.chicagoreviewpress.com/monster-hunters-products-9781613749814.php
Milwaukee Paranormal Conference
Some of you have heard me yak on and on about my next book, Monster Hunters (Chicago Review Press, June 2015). The book is about the lives of people who search for unknown entities which we can categorize under the umbrella term “paranormal.”
I spent a lot of time joining people in the field as they searched for ghosts, demons, Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, UFOs, Skunk Apes (that’s the stinky cousin of Bigfoot) and other things that go bump in the night.
In order to celebrate the June release of the book, I wanted to do something that would be kind of a big deal. Something bigger than myself. And then I thought, why don’t I do something that Milwaukee is currently lacking? By that, of course, I mean a Paranormal Conference.
Here’s what I got so far:
*The conference does have a venue in downtown Milwaukee that is about 99% sure right now. It’s a good spot. I won’t announce it officially until paperwork is signed, though. We are pretty solid on the date which is Saturday, JUNE 6, 2015. It will be a one day, all day event, about Noon-7pm or so.
*The conference will feature a variety of guest speakers from the Midwest, mostly Wisconsinites as well as some guests (hopefully) from Illinois and Michigan. These speakers will give talks on subjects including ghost stories, paranormal investigation, cryptozoology, ufology, and folklore.
I’ve spoken to several (but not all) of the speakers I’d like to feature and have gotten a very positive response. I will soon be setting up a WordPress site for the con and we will begin to reveal guests there in the future.
What else will be going on? I’ll be reading an excerpt from Monster Hunters. There will also be a tabling room where guest speakers and other guests will have books, art, and ghost tour slots for sale. Possibly a documentary screening. We’ll also have a “get your picture taken with Bigfoot” booth. And much more. We’re working on ideas.
This message is just not an announcement. In starting to put this plan to paper, I quickly realized this is not something I would be able to pull off alone. A couple people have already been helpful behind the scenes. Here are some things we need help with:
*Financing. The venue I’m looking at is offering me a fair price for a Saturday in June, but it’s not dirt cheap. Anyone who has done an event knows that other costs will add up quick–printing flyers/posters/programs, printing t-shirts, there will be a lot of fees I haven’t even thought of yet. It will be a lot of money I will have to shell out up front, more than a semi-employed writer dude from Riverwest can afford.
Most conventions would recoup their costs by charging an admission, but see the crazy thing about me is I’m somewhat determined to have this event be Free. Yes, that’s right, admission to the con: free. Or maybe I should say: priceless. Soooooo, that means I need to think of other ways to raise money. One idea I’m keen on is sponsors. If I can find a few local sponsors that would invest in this and have their logo on display on the programming/ advertising, it would go a long way. I suppose a GoFundMe or a Kickstarter might work, too, but the idea of doing one of those makes me kind of googly eyed. What else? Fund raiser/ benefit show? I am open to any advice anyone has on this topic.
*Volunteers. I need ’em. I need a volunteer coordinator, volunteers to help set up and break down, help with the guests, hand out programs, find the Bigfoot, I need tech people to monitor the AV, I need a security person or two, help with the website, help making everything run smoothly. What’s in it for you? You’ll be helping launch an interesting event and we’re going to come up with some cool swag for you.
The next step here is we will get a WordPress site up and running for the con with official name and venue. This will go live on…Halloween (October 31, 2014).
If you’d like to contact me about any of the aforementioned, e-mail is best: teakrulos@gmail.com
2013 Krulos in Review
Feb.-May 2013: I moved down to Arcadia, Florida. While there, I worked on what will now be a future book (maybe my third?) and did some freelancing for publications like The Guardian and M magazine. Things did not work out for me in Florida and I moved home to Milwaukee in May. I have no regrets. It was just another one of my hundred lives.
June 2013: Throughout the spring and summer I worked with my publisher on final edits of Heroes in the Night. They were pleased with the book and asked what I had in mind next. My initial idea was passed on (for now) but then I pitched the idea of doing a book that discussed the lives of paranormal investigators. They were into that idea, and the paperwork got signed in June. I immediately got to work. I made a connection with local group Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee (PIM) and have been hanging out with them as much as I can since.
July 2013: First travel for new book to Vermont for “Champ Camp,” hosted by Believe It Tour @ Lake Champlaign.
August 2013: Me and David Beyer, Jr. set up a blog for our comic book collaboration, Ballyhoo. I wrote the script (a fiction set in a circus in 1955) and David has been working on the art. Progress on this project has been slow as we are both busy dudes. But page by page it is happening and David’s art looks absolutely amazing. Hopefully Ballyhoo will be rolling out issue one in 2014.
September 2013: Second whirlwind trip took me to Point Pleasant, WV, Wilder, KY, Portland, ME (where I spent part of my birthday at one of my new favorite places on earth: the International Cryptozoology Museum) and Ochopee, FL (as well as a visit to Arcadia.)
October 2013: Oct. 1 was official release date for Heroes in the Night. How exciting! I had a great hometown reception at Boswell Book Company w/ after party at Stonefly Brewery. Good local press, including various bits in Shepherd Express, Onmilwaukee.com, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee mag, and The Onion’s local A.V. Club (R.I.P.) I also made in-store appearances in Chicago (Quimby’s), Madison (Westfield Comics), and Saint Paul (Common Good Books, with good attendance due in part to a feature in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.) Friends from around the country posted photos of them with the book at various bookstores around the country. Such a cool moment in my life.
November 2013: Tabled at Milwaukee Zine Fest with my friends David Beyer, Jr., Lance Orr, and Michelle from Skill Shot MKE zine. I had a zine of goofy poetry I wrote titled Palookaville. This is currently being expanded from 16 to 36 pages and will be available as a chapbook/ e-book in 2014. Also did an event at Barnes & Noble in Brookfield Square.
December 2013: Participated with Milwaukee Real Life Superheroes The Challengers at their annual Christmas charity toy drive.
I’m now at about the halfway point for my paranormal book. I have accomplished a lot on it, but there is still a lot of work to go to get to the June 2014 deadline. I will be doing another trip, to Arizona this time, in February and have some other small trips and interviews and a lot of final drafting to do. I also have a couple side projects, we’ll see what happens with those.
I could really use a team of unpaid interns right now!
After I turn this book in, I’m not quite sure what my main focus will turn to, but I’ve got a couple of ideas. I’ll be reworking some old ideas and trying some new ones, too.
A salute to 2013, and cheers to 2014!