History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Writing A Series

| September 7, 2017

I didn’t set out to write a series with Brass and Glass. But when the editors finished reading it, they asked, “Is there a sequel?” And by that point, I’d realized that I’d inadvertently written the first book of a trilogy. I’ve just finished writing the first draft of book 2 of this series now, […]

Coming Up: Volatile Figments

| September 5, 2017

I’ve been working on pulling together a lot of my old, previously published stories, along with some new stories, into mini collections. The one I’m working on currently is Volatile Figments, which will be a collection of six stories in the young adult/dark contemporary fantasy realm, a number of which feature teenage monsters. Why teenage monsters? […]

Writing with A Kernel of What You Know

| August 29, 2017

There’s a lot of advice for writers that says “write what you know.” For speculative fiction authors, that can be difficult–few of us have ever fought a dragon, piloted a spaceship, or escaped from certain doom at the hands of a horrific monster. (Your mileage may vary. I never have.) I think that perhaps the […]

“Bringing Light to the World” reprinted in Frostfire Worlds!

| August 22, 2017

My story “Bringing Light to the World” has been reprinted in the most recent issue of Frostfire Worlds from Alban Lake Publishing. It’s a fun retelling of several related Native American myths shared by several tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Not only does it explain how light was brought into the world, it also explains why […]

Cross and Circle featured on Tell Me!

| August 17, 2017

In case you missed it earlier in the week, I had a guest blog post on Jennifer Brozek’s “Tell Me,” talking about the origins of Cross and Circle! You can check it out here, and find the ebook on Amazon!

Elevator Pitching a Book

| August 15, 2017

Since I was at Spocon this past weekend, speaking on panels, I had a few opportunities to tell people about my books. I only had two books with me this weekend–Sparx and Arrows and Brass and Glass. Because Sparx and Arrows is a small book of short stories, it’s pretty easy to describe as “short stories about […]

Weird Occurrences

| August 3, 2017

One of the stories in Unfixed Timelines that I most enjoyed writing was “Veli tis Artemidos.” I got to combine western history with Greek mythology, and it still made just as much sense as what really happened! The short version of the story is that the town of Beer City, in the Oklahoma Panhandle, killed their […]

Cross and Circle available now!

| August 1, 2017

My latest book, Cross and Circle, is officially out today! It’s a contemporary fantasy novella, with a hint of mystery. From the book blurb: Evie and Carlotta are expecting the imminent arrival of their first child when an unusual group of men claims to have come for their son. Building off of a pendant that one […]

Shared Universes

| July 27, 2017

I’ve set a number of my short stories in a place called Cobalt City, which is part of a shared universe. Right now, there are about half a dozen writers working in the shared universe; a bunch of us are also in a Cobalt City game, run by the creator of the universe (who also […]

Young Readers

| July 25, 2017

I read a lot of books that fall into the middle grade or young adult categories. I really love the middle grade books, because they’re the sort of fantasy books I remember from my childhood. I also write a lot of middle grade stories. The first story I published, “The Recondite Riddle of the Rose […]