History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Unfixed Timelines Lineup Confirmed!

| July 23, 2020

I’ve written and revised the essays for Unfixed Timelines 2, so I now feel pretty confident telling you about what this collection will include. The order remains to be determined, but the stories and essay topics are: “Nochnaya Serenada” (reprint) and an essay about the history of the Night Witches “Have You Seen Him?” and […]

Stories Published!

| July 21, 2020

I had two stories come out last week, one a reprint, and one new! “I Believe” is reprinted in the latest issue of Breath & Shadow, which makes my second appearance in that magazine. This is a sweet little story about a girl growing up and how that affects her and her imaginary friends. My […]

Cover for What If I’m a Merfolk?

| July 16, 2020

You may have already seen the cover for my next collection, What If I’m a Mermaid? on my main page, but if you haven’t, check it out! The artist is Ariel Alian Wilson, who we worked with regularly for Mad Scientist Journal. The collection will have 23 poems, most of which were written in May for […]

The Nineteenth Kentucky Essay at Fantastic History!

| July 14, 2020

Catherine Schaff-Stump is hosting some of my articles about the real history behind my stories from Unfixed Timelines at her Fantastic History blog. The second post, “The 19th Kentucky,” is up now! The characters in my story, “The Glorious Dead,” were members of the 19th Kentucky, and one of those characters, James J. Ray, was […]

Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse when You Feel Like You’re in the Apocalypse

| July 9, 2020

When you’re in the midst of an uncertain time, it can be difficult to read some types of books. Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse may best fit into the category of “post-apocalyptic,” but I like to think of it as an apocalypse with a bit of hope–a little taste of hopepunk, if you will. Sure, the […]

“For the Weird Girls Who Want to Be Mermaids” Out Now!

| July 7, 2020

I’ve got a flash fiction piece out in a literary magazine, for their Literary-Speculative Issue. The story is “For the Weird Girls Who Want to Be Mermaids,” and you can find it at Orca: A Literary Journal. I wrote the bulk of this story on a plane, though it underwent some big revisions later to […]

Out Now: Coast to Coast Stars

| June 30, 2020

Coast to Coast Stars is now available in ebook format through all the usual retail sources! You can enjoy five short stories of super heroics and bystanders, including my first story told from the perspective of a scientist as she goes through the stages of becoming a villain. Two of the stories feature cameos by […]

New Haiku at Frozen Wavelets!

| June 25, 2020

I’ve got a new haiku in the latest issue of Frozen Wavelets. You can find it in the Sparse Wavelets section. I don’t write a lot of haiku, but this was one of a handful I wrote one day. This makes the third one to be published!

Coming in August: What If I’m a Merfolk?

| June 23, 2020

I spent May writing poetry for Mermay, which resulted in a bunch of new merfolk-themed poems. I’m teaming those up with a few other merfolk-themed poems and short stories, and collecting them as What If I’m a Merfolk? I don’t have my cover art yet, or I’d be sharing that today. Instead, I can tell you […]

The Shared World of Denizens of Distant Realms

| June 18, 2020

I wrote all of the stories for Denizens of Distant Realms independently of one another, and over a series of years, but as I wrote some of the later stories, I thought about the elements of each of them and realized that they could very well have taken place in the same world. There’s magic in […]