History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Fun for Friday: Panlexicon

| September 14, 2018

Sometimes, you need just the right word to make your story sing. Some might turn to a thesaurus, but thesauruses don’t always help you find the best word for what you want to convey, and sometimes they can actually lead you down the wrong path. A useful tool that I had pointed out to me […]

“The Cobbler’s Daughter” at MYTHIC Magazine!

| September 13, 2018

My story, “The Cobbler’s Daughter,” is out in MYTHIC Magazine #7! This is a sweet fantasy story about a young woman who takes up her family trade of making beautiful mojari (like the pictured shoes), learns a secret about her parentage, and works to create shoes fit for a princess. It’s got a bit of […]

Round Ups of Short Stories

| September 12, 2018

There are a ton of new short stories published every month, and it’s hard to know where to start reading. Luckily, Maria Haskins does a monthly round-up of science fiction and fantasy short stories for Barnes & Noble, so you can find some that she’s enjoyed here! You can also check out Quick Sip Reviews […]

Work in Progress: Wasteland

| September 11, 2018

A few years back, I had a short story that I was working on that was a post-apocalyptic story of a place where things wouldn’t grow, suddenly encountering a thing that had grown. I poked at it for a while, but it wanted to be something more. So I outlined it for a novel. I […]

Degrees of Ideas

| September 10, 2018

How do you figure out whether your idea is a short story, a novel, or maybe neither? Sometimes, it’s really easy to figure out. Some ideas have a scope that you know from the get-go that it’s going to be something as long as a novel, or maybe even a series. But sometimes, you have […]

Fun for Friday: Sepia-Tone Photo Prompt

| September 7, 2018

For today’s Fun for Friday, I thought I’d go with an old photo–this one is from 1895, and features a seated man and a standing woman, both dressed in the fashions of that time. The woman appears to have a book in her hand … wonder what it’s about? While this couple most clearly fits […]

Platform Cities

| September 6, 2018

When I first started writing Brass and Glass, it was a short story called “The Cask of Cranglimmering.” In the original version, pretty much all of the action took place on The Silent Monsoon, and all I really knew about that world was that they had airships and legendary whiskey. As the story grew, though, I did […]

Comic Book Round Up: Captain Marvel

| September 5, 2018

My comic book reading this past week has been exclusively Captain Marvel. And thus we have a tale of two series. Captain Marvel, Vol. 2: Down (2013) I read the first book in the 2013 run of Captain Marvel, In Pursuit of Flight, a while back, and I recall having enjoyed it. My experience with Down […]

August 2018 recap!

| September 4, 2018

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 31 Acceptances received: 2 Rejections received: 26 Stories withdrawn: 1 Resubmissions: 27 New Submissions: 3 Stories out at the end of the month: 32 August has been a busy month. I’ve had two story acceptances! I haven’t signed the contract for one of them, […]

Labor Day!

| September 3, 2018

It’s nice to have a long weekend, both in terms of relaxation and productivity. I’m spending the day working on a bunch of projects, but I’m sure I’ll get some vegging time in too. Hope everyone else is enjoying Labor Day, in whatever way you prefer!