History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

“Vodyanoi” in New Moons Under Which to Sleep

| September 30, 2021

“Vodyanoi” is one of the oldest stories I’ve written, being over a decade old at this point. It’s been published a couple of times, but I also very much wanted to include it in a sci-fi collection, once I had enough to make such a collection. It’s a strange story, inspired by a song (“Strange […]

Review of Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

| September 29, 2021

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2015) is the first book in their young adult space opera Illuminae Files series. A mix of sci-fi, thriller, and mystery, Illuminae is a story told in found documents from interview transcripts to AI artistry. Just a day after Kady Grant broke up with […]

Cobalt City Dragonstorm Out Today!

| September 28, 2021

DefCon One Publishing has a new anthology out today, the first in five years from the authors of Cobalt City. Cobalt City Dragonstorm is a collection of five short stories featuring superheroes (and supervillains) fighting dragons from other dimensions. My story in this collection is “Dead Souls,” featuring the team-up of Dulcamara, Terra Firma, and […]

Poetry Form: Erasure

| September 27, 2021

Erasure poetry is one of the formats that I’ve never quite been able to get to work well, but it’s still a fascinating form. It’s sometimes called blackout poetry, in that you black out the words that you’re not using, like in a redacted report. Typically, when the poetry includes the black boxes, it’s a […]

Fun For Friday: Images on a Theme

| September 24, 2021

This week has three images on a theme of blues and purples. The first photograph depicts a collection of brightly colored houses, bounded by a body of water and two hillsides, both of which are covered in trees. The hillside upon which the houses rest has a consistent pine forest look, while the trees on […]

“Parcel Post” in Unfixed Timelines 2

| September 23, 2021

My story “Parcel Post” was born out of a random historical “fact” and a public domain children’s book. The “fact” was that children could be mailed in the early twentieth century. It’s not entirely true, but it’s still quite evocative. (I talked more about that here, and also in the essay in Unfixed Timelines 2 […]

Indie Video Games for Writers

| September 22, 2021

If you’re a writer, you may not have a lot of time to devote to playing video games. But this article on E. M. Welsh’s blog suggest that there are 10 indie video games that writers should play. As she explains, “engaging with new mediums is essential to improving your abilities as a storyteller in […]

“Full-Weekend Pass” in Intercity Illusions

| September 21, 2021

“Full-Weekend Pass” is one of my older stories, one I was never able to find a publisher for, but one I believed in nonetheless. I loved the idea of a convention related to what people believed was a fictional world, and one of the characters from that fictional world coming to the convention to meet […]

Writing When Your Day Job is Writing Too

| September 20, 2021

Some fiction authors find themselves drawn to day jobs that also take advantage of their writing skills. But then, you can end up in a position where both your day job and your hobby (or secondary job) involve putting words on paper, which can wind up limiting your creativity in one or both venues. On […]

Fun for Friday: Warm and Homey?

| September 17, 2021

This week, I’ve got a few images that feel a bit warm and homey to me. The first image is a photo of the interior of a fairly standard coffee shop. The room has a few wooden tables surrounded by wooden chairs, and then has taller wooden chairs at the edge of the room, where […]