Venus Zapedzki is a writer, staying in Hathian because it's warm and cheap and she needs somewhere to finish her book. She's set herself up in a room at the Alligator Inn Motel in District 8.

Venus is in her late twenties and has worked as a journalist since leaving college, in various cities across the USA plus briefly in Europe, and in a number of roles ranging from freelance to two stunts as editors of local newspapers. She spent the year or so before coming to Hathian interviewing a range of immigrants, legal and illegal, recent and long-established, a variety of ethnicities, and her book comes out of her research. It documents the different stories that she has found.

Venus tends to be focused on her work and then to let off steam. Sexually, this means she has alternating periods of celibacy and promiscuity. The periods of promiscuity tend to happen when she's had a couple of drinks.