dawn.vogel | July 23, 2024
Most people are familiar with the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 (the one allegedly started by a cow), but Chicago is a city that has been plagued with substantial fires throughout its history. While other cities have certain had their fair share of fires as well, Chicago celebrated their recovery from the 1871 fire with […]
dawn.vogel | July 18, 2024
It seems like July is the month when Seattle remembers what summer is about, at least some years. As I look back over my Facebook memories, I often see comments on the hot weather once July opens. This year is no exception, with 80+ degree temperatures dragging on for multiple days.(*) As such, my mind […]
dawn.vogel | July 17, 2024
Elijah Kinch Spector’s Kalyna the Soothsayer (Erewhon Books, 2022), is a sweeping secondary world fantasy novel featuring high stakes, political intrigue, and loads of deception. Kalyna’s father and grandmother both had the Gift, the ability to see the future of people with whom they are not close. However, Kalyna was born without it, a fact her […]
dawn.vogel | July 16, 2024
My non-fiction, tongue-in-cheek, book of novel writing advice, An (Un)helpful Guide to Writing a Novel, is out today! Most books about writing a novel give you advice about plot and structure and stakes and more. This isn’t most books. Within the pages of An (Un)helpful Guide to Writing a Novel, you’ll find information about writing novels from […]
dawn.vogel | July 11, 2024
I’ve had a handful of fantasy short stories and poetry out since my last round-up post! In November 2023, “Family Tree” appeared in Wyldblood Magazine. This story follows an orphaned teenage girl living with her aunt and uncle and what happens when she tires of their ill treatment of her. My flash fiction piece, “Mutualism by […]
dawn.vogel | July 8, 2024
Another panel I was on at the WriteHive Online Conference was Historians on History. With a couple of other historians, archivists, and writers of historical fiction, we talked about doing research for our historical stories and how to avoid certain pitfalls of research rabbit holes (not always successful) and how to deal with difficult history […]
dawn.vogel | 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. […]
dawn.vogel | 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 […]
dawn.vogel | June 26, 2024
I finally got to read The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur (Feiwel & Friends, 2021), which is her second historical fiction young adult mystery novel, set in fifteenth century Korea on the island of Jeju. This is the third of Hur’s books I’ve read, and I adored it just as much as I loved […]
dawn.vogel | 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 […]
