History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Exploring a Character Through Avatar of Freya

| May 22, 2025

All of the stories in Avatar of Freya include the titular character, aka Friday Jones / Dulcamara. Friday was originally a character I played in a Cobalt City tabletop game, and some of the characters she teams up with in Avatar of Freya were also characters in the game, played by some of my friends. While I […]

My Latest Sci-Fi Publications

| May 20, 2025

Since my last post about sci-fi publications, I’ve had a couple of poems and a short story published, plus some self-published pieces in Weathering Youth! My poem “An Alphabet of Forty-Two,” which is about language in a sci-fi setting where different species are in contact with one another, appeared in the October 2024 issue of […]

Strength in A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages

| May 15, 2025

The Strength tarot card represents strength, as is to be expected, but also courage, persuasion, and patience. In A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages, this is represented by a haiku and a poem. The haiku, “rippling waters” (after the first line of the poem), being very brief, mainly deals with the “face value” of the […]

Have You Checked Out Sure Shot in Cobalt City: Homecoming?

| May 8, 2025

Have you checked out Sure Shot in Cobalt City: Homecoming, the second of my Sure Shot novellas, which are stand-alone, alternate history, 1950s noir mysteries with superheroes? A mysterious case, a murdered friend, and something sinister behind it all. Sarah Castile, former superhero turned private investigator, is on the case! When her old friend Lillian invites […]

New Poetry in April 2025 (and a March 2025 pub)

| May 1, 2025

I had one new piece out in April 2025. My poem “Adaptable” appeared in issue 56 of Eye to the Telescope. This poem is from the perspective of a bit of dandelion fluff in space, with a refrain of “I don’t belong here.” The fun of the refrain is that by emphasizing any single word in […]

Mermay and What If I’m a Merfolk?

| April 29, 2025

As we’re getting closer to May, I’m thinking about Mermay and my collection What If I’m a Merfolk? While not all of the pieces included in this collection were written during Mermay, a large amount of the poetry was, using the daily prompts as my inspiration for each piece. This let me write a bunch of […]

“How Far You’ll Go” and “Shrinking Violet” in Weathering Youth

| April 24, 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! “How Far You’ll […]

“Pivot Hinge” in The Sidewalk Diverges

| April 22, 2025

“Pivot Hinge” started out as a story about something that was hidden in plain sight, paired with a random quote that is lost to the ages. I originally called the story “Let My Love Open the Door,” and the earliest draft involved a film, which eventually morphed into an album and a music video. The […]

Kickstarter Recommendation: Enter Here: An Anthology of Portals

| April 16, 2025

If you like anthologies featuring stories by marginalized authors, check out Enter Here: An Anthology of Portals, which is currently on Kickstarter! The anthology will feature horror, fantasy, and sci-fi stories about doors opening. Four of the stories have already been selected, but there’s an open call to fill the remaining spots in the anthology! You […]

Coast to Coast Stars: Tales of Cobalt and Cerulean City

| April 15, 2025

My collection, Coast to Coast Stars, came out almost five years ago! It’s got five short stories set in Cobalt City and Cerulean City, with the former on the East Coast and the latter on the West Coast. Four of the stories are set in Cerulean City, but one of them, “Happily Never After,” features a […]