History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Fun for Friday: Interesting Etymology

| March 15, 2024

Looking for some fun facts to share at your next awkward icebreaker? How about the etymology of the word “awkward”? Find that and fourteen other words in this article about interesting word origins!  

New Urban Fantasy Stories

| March 14, 2024

I’ve had a number of new and reprinted urban fantasy pieces come out since my last post on the subject. Here’s where you can find them! My flash fiction piece “The Train Station That Knows What You Need” is a somewhat surreal, slipstream story about a train station in Japan, which was published in Cafe […]

Kickstarter Recommendation: Neon Hemlock’s 2024 Novella Series

| March 13, 2024

I backed last year’s Neon Hemlock novella series Kickstarter, and I’m looking forward to this year’s as well! From last year, I’ve reviewed Hybrid Heart and The Killing Ground, along with Suzan Palumbo’s Skin Thief, a collection including short stories and a novella, and I’ve got more of these on tap to review! If you’re curious to […]

Plans for My Patreon in 2024!

| March 12, 2024

Have you checked out my Patreon? It’s a way for my fans to support my writing and learn about what I’m working on! I share updates about my works in progress, including snippets of stories for my patrons! I’d love to reach my goal of making a monthly video of me reading one of my […]

Ideas for Genre Mashups

| March 11, 2024

On Friday, the writing prompts were related to genre mashups, and today, I’m sharing an article from one of the Story Engine folks on how you can use the Story Engine cards to create mashed-up genre story plots. The Story Engine cards are among my favorite card-based writing tools, so it’s neat to see these […]

Fun for Friday: Genre Mashups

| March 8, 2024

Looking for a fun idea for a story? Check out this Sub-Genre Mash-Up game, in which you roll a d20 twice to get the sub-genres you’re going to combine for a story! If you don’t have a d20 handy, you can use a random number generator, or you can use my rolls of 7 and […]

February 2024 Publications

| March 7, 2024

I had three pieces come out in February, all flash fiction! Small Wonders reprinted my story “Grandmother Firebird,” which is a sweet and cozy multigenerational tale of daughter, mother, and grandmother. My story “The Glass Cauldron Shattered” appeared in 99 Fleeting Fantasies, an anthology of flash fiction pieces. This one takes a look at magical […]

What I’m Reading, Watching, and Listening To: March 2024

| March 6, 2024

Reading: Books to review, including some anthologies and some stand-alone books. Watching: Not much recently other than K-pop related things. Listening To: Recent additions to my list have been Boy Story (which is actually a Chinese group, trained in the K-pop system, and now making a Korean debut) and Just B. The latter is because […]

February 2024 Recap

| March 5, 2024

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 116 Acceptances received: 2 Rejections received: 41 (+3) Stories withdrawn: 4 Resubmissions: 41 New Submissions: 8 Stories out at the end of the month: 115 February has continued January’s trend of being a good time to finish pieces. One of my new submissions this […]

Advice on Writing Fairy Tale Retellings

| March 4, 2024

I’ve been noodling on a fairy tale retelling recently, and I came across this article that gives some good advice on writing such a thing! The one I’m working on may add some additional levels of complexity to this advice, but it’s definitely a good starting point!