dawn.vogel | January 31, 2024
Clara Ward’s Be the Sea (Atthis Arts, 2024) is an amazing sci-fi novel filled with found family, lost friends found again, stories, and dreams. Set in a world where climate change has occurred but been mitigated in places, it has a fairly cozy storyline and an eclectic cast of queer and disabled characters. Wend, a marine […]
dawn.vogel | January 30, 2024
While “Kleptoparasitism” isn’t the darkest of stories in Dead-Starred Futures, it is set in a potential dystopian future in which insects are a widespread protein source. It’s a microfiction story about how a visit to a location where insects are processed might go awry. If you like the idea of this story, check out Dead-Starred Futures […]
dawn.vogel | January 29, 2024
If you’re looking for a source of weird writing advice, may I point you toward Kurt Pankau’s blog? His theme for 2024 is weird writing advice, which he’s calling Your Mileage May Vary. That second link will take you to all of his posts on the topic to date, which means if you’re finding this […]
dawn.vogel | January 26, 2024
It’s time for the February 2024 writing prompts! As per the usual, I’ve pulled these in from other sources, though I had to do some digging since this year is a leap year! The first column is from a 2023 Kick in the Creatives February “Faces” prompt list. I added the word for the last […]
dawn.vogel | January 25, 2024
Have you had a chance to check out Brother’s Keeper yet? It’s a novelette set in the Cobalt City Universe, featuring the members of Triple Threat (Dulcamara, Terra Firma, and Ex Spiravit), along with Caterwaul, Gato Loco, and a new hero and villain! Gato Loco’s days as a vigilante are over. When a problem needs superheroes […]
dawn.vogel | January 24, 2024
If you like the idea of a nonlinear choose-your-own-adventure anthology, check out the Kickstarter for Wyoming, which is exactly that. It involves 35 authors writing pieces that can branch off of one another, creating an interactive reading experience that can take many paths. Backers of the Kickstarter will get early access to the anthology’s contents […]
dawn.vogel | January 23, 2024
“Trinkets or Treasures” falls more into the gaslamp fantasy area of steampunk–there’s no noted steampunk technology, and it’s more about magic than technology. But I included it in this collection because it fit well into the steampunk connection to people fighting against corrupt governmental systems. It’s a brief flash piece offering a bit on insight […]
dawn.vogel | January 22, 2024
If you’re an author looking for advice on the internet, you’re likely to come across plenty that’s outdated, possibly “written” by an AI, or otherwise downright bad. This article from LitHub collects some samples of bad advice, often given by good writers. This is the sort of stuff that gets repeated over and over again […]
dawn.vogel | January 19, 2024
If you enjoy writing stories that make people laugh, check out these comedic writing prompts from ScreenCraft. The prompts generally lend themselves toward stories set in our world, but for extra fun, you could add twists that let them become sci-fi or fantasy stories … or even horror stories. If you’re not a big comedy […]
dawn.vogel | January 18, 2024
My latest post-apocalyptic tales are in my collection Dead-Starred Futures. They include some dystopian and dark sci-fi stories on other worlds and some that take place on an Earth that looks very different after climate change and other things render the planet harder to make our home. In addition to this collection, I have two post-apocalyptic […]
