History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Fun for Friday: October 2023 Writing Prompts

| September 29, 2023

It’s spooky season! I mean, in my world, spooky season is year round, but it’s time for the October 2023 writing prompts, and this month, it’s all about Halloween! Column 1, as it always is for the October prompts, is Mab’s Drawlloween Challenge. This one is always my favorite list, year after year! The hashtag […]

“Superstitions” in Conceits of Whim and Fancy

| October 20, 2022

“Superstitions” started as a Drawlloween piece that turned into a story about a woman following in her father’s footsteps as a ship’s captain, but struggling in a sexist line of work. Her solution to the problem isn’t necessarily the one she planned, but it works out in the end. Conceits of Whim and Fancy contains […]

Fun for Friday: October 2022 Writing Prompts!

| September 30, 2022

Alright, everyone. It’s spooky season, and we’re getting EXTRA weird for this month’s writing prompts! As I often do for October, I’m pulling the first column of prompts from Mab’s Drawlloween Club. This year, Mab has opted to write prompts that will inspire lighter and sillier drawings (or stories). But for my second column, I’ve […]

“A Modern Mary Shelley” in Doorways in the Gloom

| August 16, 2022

My story “A Modern Mary Shelley” was from a Drawlloween prompt of the author’s name. In this case, I wrote a second-person story from the perspective of a student entranced by the odd girl in their class, discovering more and more about her until the final conclusion. One of my favorite lines from this story: […]

“The Gift” in Intercity Illusions

| June 7, 2022

“The Gift” began as an attempt to write a non-Halloween story during Drawlloween and instead coming up with a winter holiday story. The prompt was the goblin market, so I came up with a single dad needing to get a gift for his young daughter, but paying for it in an unusual (not scary!) way. […]

Fun for Friday: October 2021 Writing Prompts

| October 1, 2021

This year, I’m going all in for Halloween-themed prompts for the month of October. These are compiled from other creators; specifically, column 1 is Mab’s Drawlloween Club, column 2 is Creeptober from Kick in the Creatives, and column 3 is from Drawlloween.com. The format of these is slightly different from my normal single word format, […]

“Superstitions” at Manawaker Studios Flash Fiction Podcast

| June 8, 2021

My story of ships, magic, and rats has been podcast! You can find “Superstitions” at Manawaker Studios Flash Fiction Podcast. “Superstitions” started as a Drawlloween piece in 2018. It was published in Theme of Absence in early 2020, and now it’s got an audio version for folks who prefer to listen to stories read to them. […]

Two New Stories Out!

| December 29, 2020

After I posted my list of 2020 short story publications, I had two more flash fiction pieces come out! Both of these were Drawlloween stories from 2018, which might have been my most successful monthly writing challenge to date–I’ve sold 13 of the 31 pieces I started that month! “Maija Spencer, Internet Witch” is a […]

October 2020 recap

| November 5, 2020

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 109 Acceptances received: 0 Rejections received: 59 Stories withdrawn: 2 Resubmissions: 99 New Submissions: 1 Stories out at the end of the month: 147 Pretty good month by the numbers. I’m getting more stuff out there, even if it’s not immediately leading to more […]

What If I’m a Merfolk?: Big Fish

| October 20, 2020

The new story that appears in What If I’m a Merfolk? is “Big Fish,” which is a very short flash piece. It’s told in an unusual style for me, in that it’s a first person story in which the narrator responds to unstated questions from an unseen and unheard second character. But for this story, […]