History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Historical Fiction

| January 30, 2018

At Rustycon, I was on a couple of panels about historical fiction or using history for writing and gaming ideas. We talked about interesting historical fiction we’d read and written, as well as ways of using history to come up with neat story or gaming ideas. If it wasn’t already apparent from the name of […]

When the Heroine Isn’t 18, Blonde, and a Size 3

| January 25, 2018

One of the panels I was on at Rustycon was called “When the Heroine Isn’t 18, Blonde, and a Size 3.” The topics we talked about were wide ranging, from books to TV to movies, but the primary idea was about writing non-Hollywood style women protagonists. This is a topic near and dear to my […]

Battling in All Her Finery: Countdown to the Kickstarter Launch!

| January 23, 2018

Today on Facebook, we’re launching an event to count down to the launch of our next Mad Scientist Journal anthology on Kickstarter. Which is a long way of saying: we’ve got another Kickstarter on the horizon! Battling in All Her Finery will be an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories about woman leaders: presidents, queens, […]

Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse: What’s It All About?

| January 18, 2018

My next novella, Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse, will be out in a couple of weeks, and it’s available for pre-order now! The title hints at what it’s about, but the blurb explains it a bit better! Without warning, most of humanity stopped speaking. Acting in silent unison, they overthrew the world in service to an […]

Two Heads are Better

| January 11, 2018

What’s better than a superhero? A team-up! Any time you get two (or more) superheroes involved, you’ve got potential for more exciting happenings. And, likely, more exciting conflict. In Sparx and Arrows, Kara Sparx, who is very much not a team joiner, works with Huntsman to deal with a problem that they’ve both had to confront–robotic […]

Inspiration: Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse

| January 9, 2018

As I’ve mentioned before, Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse came out of the 2017 Write Like You’re Alive challenge from Zoetic Press. This also wound up informing the format for the story, too. See, I normally outline using Mark Teppo’s outline structure (which I’ve talked about before), which leads to an 18 chapter outline, with […]

Holiday Reading: Heroes of Necessity

| December 28, 2017

Back when I worked at a university, I had the whole week between Christmas and New Years off from work. I don’t have that perk anymore, but I know a lot of people who take time between the holidays to relax. If you’ve got a lot of time and are looking for something to read, […]

Now Available: Mad Scientist Journal Winter 2018

| December 27, 2017

Mad Scientist Journal: Winter 2018 is now available, featuring stories of mad science, advise, classified ads, and a gossip column! Cooking advice, previously undiscovered species, and tortured artists. These are but some of the strange tales to be found in this book. Mad Scientist Journal: Winter 2017 collects thirteen tales from the fictional worlds of mad […]

Holiday Reading: Cross and Circle

| December 26, 2017

If the weather outside is making you want to curl up under a blanket and read, might I recommend my novelette Cross and Circle? It’s a contemporary fantasy story set around the winter holidays, making it a good, short, post-Christmas read. Here’s the summary: Evie and Carlotta are expecting the imminent arrival of their first child when […]

Cover Reveal: Scenes from a Quiet Apocalypse

| December 21, 2017

The latest book I’ve been working on is a weird, experimental piece using the major arcana of the tarot deck as its outline, so to speak. I wrote the pieces of it during the Write Like You’re Alive challenge in August this year, and then decided that it was worth prodding into the shape of […]