History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Unfixed Timelines 4 Out Today

| October 13, 2026

My latest collection, Unfixed Timelines 4: Essays and Short Stories of a History That Never Was, is now out! A young Mary Shelley learning about scientific experiments to reanimate the dead, the ghosts of two brothers helping a living girl outwit a fraudulent psychic, memories of an heirloom quilt, and a young girl meeting a strange […]

“Evergreen” and “The Magic Matters” in Chimerical Remembrance

| October 6, 2026

“Evergreen” and “The Magic Matters” are two very short stories in Chimerical Remembrance. “Evergreen” is flash fiction, and “The Magic Matters” is microfiction. What these two stories have in common is that they’re about family relationships that have major or minor issues. “Evergreen” involves the relationship between a non-binary adult child and their terminally ill mother, […]

“Red Scare” in Sure Shot Stories

| October 1, 2026

The first story in Sure Shot Stories: Tales of the Lady Huntsman, “Red Scare,” is the first Sarah Castile story I wrote, back in 2015. My first ever Huntsman story was five years before that, featuring Eleanor Castile, who had taken on the Huntsman mantle while her father was injured. This was the first time I […]

“I Won’t Open My Eyes” and “Where There’s Rain, There’s …” in Weathering Youth

| September 29, 2026

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! “I Won’t Open My […]

“A Remnant of the Past” in Chimerical Remembrance

| September 17, 2026

A lot of the stories within Chimerical Remembrance come from personal experiences, though in general, the details have been changed substantially. “A Remnant of the Past” is one such story. The setting of the story is my first apartment, which was allegedly used as a morgue during the Civil War. However, when I did a bit […]

More Unfixed Timelines in October!

| September 15, 2026

My latest collection, Unfixed Timelines 4: Essays and Short Stories of a History That Never Was, will be released by DefCon One Publishing on October 13! A young Mary Shelley learning about scientific experiments to reanimate the dead, the ghosts of two brothers helping a living girl outwit a fraudulent psychic, memories of an heirloom quilt, […]

“Hollow” in This Book Has Ghosts in It

| September 1, 2026

“Hollow” is a flash fiction story that plays with how our perceptions can color the idea of “the end of the world.” In this case, it’s a little bit horror, a little bit apocalyptic, and definitely dark contemporary fantasy. I wrote this story as part of a horror writing course I was taking from Nino […]

Sure Shot Stories: Tales of the Lady Huntsman

| August 27, 2026

My collection, Sure Shot Stories: Tales of the Lady Huntsman, came out just over a month ago. It collects two previously published Sarah Castile stories, plus one that’s only available in this collection currently. The stories follow Sarah’s European adventures in “Red Scare” and “Der Schwarze Wolf von Piz Bernina,” while “Nochevieja” is set in Cobalt […]

“Kindred Souls” and “Student Response to Referral Report” in Weathering Youth

| August 25, 2026

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! “Kindred Souls” is a […]

Fun for Friday: The Big Pink Book Prompt 10, Free Spirit

| August 21, 2026

On Monday, I posted the blank version of the tenth prompt in the Big Pink Book, which had themes of joy and happiness. Of course, I had to take it in a different direction. A while back, I wrote a drabble titled “Tarot Esoterica: The Black Lagoon,” which appeared in This Book Has Ghosts in It. […]