History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Sparx and Arrows–Cobalt City Short Story Collection

| July 2, 2024

Most of my writing in the Cobalt City Universe has been short stories. My collection, Sparx and Arrows, includes the FIRST story I wrote in that shared universe, “Daddy’s Little Girl,” set in the late nineteenth century, in which a young Eleanor Castile temporarily takes on the mantle of the Huntsman when her father is injured. […]

“Desperate and Rebellious Hearts” in Unfixed Timelines 3

| June 27, 2024

My theme for stories this week is apparently Norway, as my fantastical history short story “Desperate and Rebellious Hearts” is set in Norway, far to the north in Vardo. I started this story with research about the Vardo witch trials in the seventeenth century, and while the witch in my story isn’t on trial, she’s […]

“Seeds of Knowledge” in Dead-Starred Futures

| June 25, 2024

My microfiction piece “Seeds of Knowledge” was inspired by watching some videos about the Svalbard seed vault in Norway and imagining how a similar facility on an alien planet, where explorers don’t read the language, might look. Compared to other stories in Dead-Starred Futures, it seems a bit more positive on the surface, but the lack […]

“Fashion Statement” in Conceits of Whim and Fancy

| June 20, 2024

My short story “Fashion Statement” started out as a flash fiction piece, inspired by the title “The Ladies Wove Baskets of Steel.” Early on in the process, I changed “baskets” to “dresses,” and the original story had a single dress made from steel to dissuade the suitors of a princess reluctant to marry. From the […]

Coming Later in 2024: Two Stories in Rescuing Curiosity!

| June 19, 2024

During the 2024 WriteHive online conference, they announced the table of contents for the upcoming Rescuing Curiosity anthology, and I’m pleased to say that TWO of my stories made the list! “It Can’t Be Sunday Everywhere at Once” is a sci-fi story involving refugees on a long-term space voyage and how one young woman came up […]

Coming in July: An (Un)helpful Guide to Writing a Novel

| June 18, 2024

I’ve spent a lot of time preparing to publish An (Un)helpful Guide to Writing a Novel, my non-fiction, tongue-in-cheek, guide for aspiring novel writers. In large part, some of the humor in this book is the fact that I do not enjoy writing novels, but I’ve got advice to share about the process. The other part […]

New Spooky Pieces

| June 13, 2024

If you like to read spookier pieces, here’s some of my recent horror and dark publications! Unfixed Timelines 3 includes several historical fiction pieces with darker themes, including “Charcoals from an Unidentified Chicago Artist” and “Green-Eyed Phantom.” Though neither of these are horror, they definitely delve into the darker side of history and fiction. My […]

“Not Their Real Names” in The Sidewalk Diverges

| June 11, 2024

“Not Their Real Names” is a semi-humorous flash fiction piece involving a heist from the perspective of the person running the operation as she deals with her hired crew. I made use of a pretty clever trick in this story by nicknaming the characters after pop culture personalities and characters, because by doing so, I […]

My May 2024 Publications!

| June 6, 2024

I announced this last week as well, but my one May publication was my story, “The Storyteller,” in Bikes, The Universe, and Everything from Microcosm Publishing. This is the eleventh volume of the Bikes in Space series, but the first one I’ve placed a story in. My story involves a post-apocalyptic culture that relies on bicycles […]

“One Book, Never Published” in Dead-Starred Futures

| May 30, 2024

My microfiction story, “One Book, Never Published,” is a brief look at how time-travel to prevent the publication of a book filled with falsehoods might turn out. If you’ve been following my posts about the stories in Dead-Starred Futures, you may already know that the answer to that is “not entirely well.” But despite that […]