History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Review of So You Want to be a Robot by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor

| December 31, 2025

Merc Fenn Wolfmoor’s collection So You Want to be a Robot (Robot Dinosaur Press, 2024) contains 22 fabulous speculative fiction stories with queer and neurodiverse characters living their lives and dealing with the world around them, which is not always kind. Normally, when I review an anthology or collection, I talk a bit about specific stories […]

My 2025 Awards Eligibility

| December 30, 2025

I’ve had quite a few stories and poems out this year, so here’s a recap of things I’ve published that are eligible for awards consideration! Short Stories “One Person’s Nightmare,” Rescuing Curiosity (2,500 words, contemporary fantasy) “It Can’t Be Sunday Everywhere at Once,” Rescuing Curiosity (3,200 words, sci-fi) “Last Dam Standing,” Analog July/August 2025 (3,000 words, sci-fi/climate change) […]

January 2026 Writing Prompts

| December 26, 2025

We’ve still got almost a week of December, but it’s time for the first monthly writing prompts for 2026! This month, I’ve got one list that’s decidedly winter themed, while the other two have fewer winter-specific prompts. Column 1 is Doodlewash’s January 2026 prompts. The list included a few plants and animals I wasn’t familiar […]

“Gosutouotchi” and “Remote Control” in Weathering Youth

| December 18, 2025

Because Weathering Youth is my biggest collection to date, I’m grouping the short stories and flash fiction stories in pairs for my posts, based on the way they fall in the collection. This lets me look at the connections between the stories and how I decided to arrange specific stories in the collection! “Gosutouotchi” and “Remote Control” […]

Newsletter Out Yesterday!

| December 16, 2025

My monthly newsletter came out yesterday, so if you like reading about what I’m doing, subscribe to my newsletter! It comes out once a month, around the middle of the month, and it recaps what I’ve been writing and doing, along with things coming soon, bits of history research, and book recommendations! In addition to […]

Temperance in A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages

| December 11, 2025

The Temperance tarot card represents patience, balance, moderation, and harmony. However, it also has an association with art and blending opposites. In A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages, this is represented by a haiku and a poem. The haiku, named after the first line, “art that walks careful,” touches on the dangers of hewing to […]

October and November 2025 Recap and Publications

| December 4, 2025

By the numbers: Stories out at the beginning of the month: 43 Acceptances received: 4 Rejections received: 15 (+6) Stories withdrawn: 0 Resubmissions: 11 New Submissions: 1 Stories out at the end of the month: 30 October and November wound up being very chaotic for me, with a lot of traveling, K-pop events, a wedding, […]

Review of What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

| December 3, 2025

T. Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead (Tor Nightfire, 2022) is, at its core, a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This novella takes the classic tale and puts a new spin on it, lending something of an explanation to the original while taking it in an amazingly cool direction! Rather […]