History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Cross and Circle featured on Tell Me!

| August 17, 2017

In case you missed it earlier in the week, I had a guest blog post on Jennifer Brozek’s “Tell Me,” talking about the origins of Cross and Circle! You can check it out here, and find the ebook on Amazon!

Review of Iron Edda: Sveidsdottir

| August 16, 2017

My latest review is up at Mad Scientist Journal today. This one is for a Norse steampunk fantasy novel that was funded through a Kickstarter a few years ago. It’s been waiting on my Kindle for quite some time, but I only just got to read it! You can check out my review here!

Elevator Pitching a Book

| August 15, 2017

Since I was at Spocon this past weekend, speaking on panels, I had a few opportunities to tell people about my books. I only had two books with me this weekend–Sparx and Arrows and Brass and Glass. Because Sparx and Arrows is a small book of short stories, it’s pretty easy to describe as “short stories about […]

Story Ideas

| August 14, 2017

On Friday at Spocon, I spoke on a panel about story ideas with James C. Glass and Alex Fedyr. We wound up talking about a lot more than just story ideas (like outlining, parts of a story, and the different ways that screenwriters look at novels), but here’s some of what we talked about. One […]

Fun for Friday: Amazing Ideas!

| August 11, 2017

Off at Spocon, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday, with more on story ideas!

“Miasma” among the 2017 Write Well Award winners!

| August 10, 2017

I got news at the beginning of the month that I’ve been chomping at the bit to share! They posted it on their website yesterday, so it’s official now. My short story, “Miasma,” which originally appeared in NonBinary Review’s “The King in Yellow” issue, and then was reprinted at Liquid Imagination, is among the stories selected […]

Review of Starfall

| August 9, 2017

My latest review for Mad Scientist Journal is Jessie Kwak’s novella, Starfall. It’s the first in a series of novellas, but the second is already out, in case you’re the type who doesn’t want to wait to read the sequel. You can check out my review here!

Spocon!

| August 8, 2017

This weekend, I’ll be speaking on some panels at Spocon, a sci-fi and fantasy convention in Spokane, Washington. If you’re going to be there, here’s where you can find me! Friday, August 11, 2:00-3:00 p.m., Parkside II: Generating Story Ideas, with James C. Glass and Alex Fedyr Saturday, August 12, 12:00-1:00 p.m., Parkside II: Undead in […]

Choosing Titles

| August 7, 2017

Whether you’re writing novels or short fiction, titles are important. For one thing, you need them in order to keep track of your stuff. But you also need them so other people can keep track of your stuff. And while you could just call things “Book 1,” “Book 2,” etc., that’s not really all that […]

Fun for Friday: Interesting Plot Building Exercises

| August 4, 2017

As a bit of fun for this Friday, I found an interesting post that talks about adding layers to your plot. I am particularly intrigued by the Donald Maass workshop exercise, because I LOVE random things. So the idea of randomly drawing lines between characters, narrative elements, and places to see what might shake loose is […]