History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

“Five Days After” in The Sidewalk Diverges

| August 22, 2023

My story “Five Days After” is one of the many stories that I first had the idea for while riding the bus in Seattle. Bus commuting is normally fairly quiet and boring. Many of the people on the bus are just trying to get to and from their day jobs. But sometimes you overhear interesting […]

The Setting of Barren

| November 16, 2021

When I originally drafted Barren, I had a very clear picture of where it was set, because I’d based the location on where I live. Though later drafts strayed away from that location, much of the setting is still a temperate Pacific Northwest climate after the impacts of sea level rise. Years ago, Jeremy found a […]

Heroes of Necessity: Running in Seattle

| June 6, 2019

I got the idea to write “Origin Story” while I was driving behind a car with multiple marathon stickers plastered across its back end. Seeing all of those stickers made me think what Seattle would be like if the zombie apocalypse hit. Would we get fast zombies simply because there are so many runners in […]

Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse: Where is Destiny?

| May 3, 2018

While I was writing Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse, I very much had a setting in mind, but it’s a setting that never was named. Astute readers may have picked up on the clues that I left, but for others, it may have read as a strictly fictitious city. The book works fine whether you know […]