History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

My 2023 Awards Eligibility Post

| January 3, 2024

It’s the time of year when folks start posting lists of their stories and books from the past year that are eligible for award nominations, like the Nebulas, Hugos, and more. I’m including word count for my short stories and novelette this year, because different awards require different word counts, and it’s easy for me […]

“Good to the Last Drop” in Dead-Starred Futures

| December 28, 2023

“Good to the Last Drop” is a dark sci-fi flash fiction piece that involved research into hydroponics and growing coffee, along with some other searches to pull together the plot. I can’t say much more about that research without giving it away, but suffice it to say that some people will do ANYTHING for their […]

“The Dame with the Boots” in The Sidewalk Diverges

| December 26, 2023

I can always remember where I got my weirdest ideas, and it’s almost always that someone misread, misheard, or misinterpreted something. “The Dame with the Boots” was definitely one of these cases. I think it was something about a pool shark, and for whatever reason, I pictured an actual shark playing pool, and somehow, that […]

“Nectar Shortage” in Conceits of Whim and Fancy

| December 21, 2023

Sometimes, a story starts with a writing prompt in a workshop, and then you wind up frantically typing the rest of the story in your hotel room after the workshop instead of whatever you had planned next. That’s how “Nectar Shortage” came about. It required a good deal of editing and reworking, but the bones […]

My Recent(-ish) Sci-Fi Stories and Collections!

| December 19, 2023

It’s been quite a while since I did a sci-fi roundup of things I’ve published. So here goes! My poem, “Portrait Day at Zapus Zone 9 Academy,” which imagines a school attended by multiple alien species, appeared in Star*Line in October 2022. My flash fiction piece, “Senchado in Microgravity,” was podcast at Manawaker Studios Flash […]

“Corporate Career Counseling Construct” in Droplets from the Universe!

| December 14, 2023

“Corporate Career Counseling Construct” began as me goofing around with the idea of a sci-fi themed tarot deck and someone turning it into a program for employees of a corporation to use for career counseling. As might be expected, the construct tries to give useful advice, but … it’s a little overly enthusiastic, shall we […]

Brother’s Keeper Out Today!

| December 12, 2023

My latest book is out today! Brother’s Keeper is a novelette (about 10,000 words) set in the Cobalt City Universe, featuring the members of Triple Threat (Dulcamara, Terra Firma, and Ex Spiravit), Caterwaul, Gato Loco, and a new hero and villain! Gato Loco’s days as a vigilante are over. When a problem needs superheroes to fix […]

Poetry in Doorways in the Gloom

| November 28, 2023

There’s a part of me that never really left her goth phase, and sometimes, that comes out in my poetry. I included twelve of my dark poems in Doorways in the Gloom. They range from somewhat tongue-in-cheek on ghosts and death (like “15 Ghosts” or “Definitely Not Haunted”) to dark fantasy (“The Briar Princess”) to something […]

Have You Checked Out Unfixed Timelines 3 and Omnibus?

| November 23, 2023

Have you checked out Unfixed Timelines 3 or the Unfixed Timelines Omnibus yet? The former contains seven stories and one poem, along with essays explaining the history that each piece twists, while the latter collects the first three volumes (more than 20 stories and poems, along with their essays) into one book. Here’s the blurb […]

“Vantablack” in Dead-Starred Futures

| November 21, 2023

My flash fiction piece “Vantablack” was, unsurprisingly, inspired by the ridiculous but entertaining artist’s feud over the blackest black. In this story, I combined that with a newly discovered unusual planet and the weird trend of crowd-sourcing names for things. It’s a shock “Planet McPlanety-Face” didn’t win. (I considered it. But I liked my original […]