History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Out Now: Coast to Coast Stars

| June 30, 2020

Coast to Coast Stars is now available in ebook format through all the usual retail sources! You can enjoy five short stories of super heroics and bystanders, including my first story told from the perspective of a scientist as she goes through the stages of becoming a villain. Two of the stories feature cameos by […]

Poetry: Rhyming

| June 29, 2020

When I first started writing poetry as an adult, meter was one of the hardest things for me to get my head around. After some practice, though, I’ve gotten better at it. Now the big stumper for me is rhyming, but I’m learning how to better use that in poetry as well. I’ve gotten some […]

Fun for Friday: July 2020 Writing Prompts

| June 26, 2020

In the northern hemisphere, we’re headed toward summer, with many locales already seeing summer temperatures. In the meantime, I’m sure the southern hemisphere is getting well into winter (though I know fewer people there commenting on the weather). For July, I’ve got prompts about summer, but also some drawn from various July art challenges and […]

New Haiku at Frozen Wavelets!

| June 25, 2020

I’ve got a new haiku in the latest issue of Frozen Wavelets. You can find it in the Sparse Wavelets section. I don’t write a lot of haiku, but this was one of a handful I wrote one day. This makes the third one to be published!

Reading, Watching, and Listening To, Late June Edition

| June 24, 2020

Reading: I’m working my way through my stacks of graphic novels. In addition to things I plan to review here, I’m also progressing through The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, and Doctor Aphra. A lot of these graphic novels have been stacked up for a long time, and it’s a good feeling to watch that stack shrink! Watching: […]

Coming in August: What If I’m a Merfolk?

| June 23, 2020

I spent May writing poetry for Mermay, which resulted in a bunch of new merfolk-themed poems. I’m teaming those up with a few other merfolk-themed poems and short stories, and collecting them as What If I’m a Merfolk? I don’t have my cover art yet, or I’d be sharing that today. Instead, I can tell you […]

Gamifying Your Writing

| June 22, 2020

Gamification is defined as “the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.” In addition to the marketing applications, for some writers, gamifying writing tasks can be a great […]

Fun for Friday: Writing Challenges!

| June 19, 2020

If you’re looking for something to shake up your writing routine, check out these 8 creative writing challenges. While some are linked to a specific time frame, others can be used as you see fit!  

The Shared World of Denizens of Distant Realms

| June 18, 2020

I wrote all of the stories for Denizens of Distant Realms independently of one another, and over a series of years, but as I wrote some of the later stories, I thought about the elements of each of them and realized that they could very well have taken place in the same world. There’s magic in […]

Comic Review: Air vol. 1

| June 17, 2020

I’ve had a little time to start dipping back into my unread graphic novels stacks (yes, plural), so I’ll be reviewing a handful of them here on my blog. The first one I tackled was Air volume 1, which is written by G. Willow Wilson (perhaps better known for her Ms. Marvel run, which I love). […]