History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

“A Sixteen-Step Plan to Supervillainy” out now!

| December 10, 2019

My flash fiction piece, “A Sixteen-Step Plan to Supervillainy,” is now out from Flash Fiction Magazine! And though it may not be entirely apparent if you read this story alone, this story is Cobalt City adjacent! I came up with the character of Gray Dawn thanks to online friends and a cool pair of leggings […]

Every Hero Needs a Villain

| August 27, 2019

When you’re writing super hero stories, it’s also important to have good villains to send your heroes up against. In Sparx & Arrows, there are all sorts of villains for the heroes to face. When her father is down for the count, Eleanor Castile goes up against a mad scientist (engineer, really) who’s constructed killer steampunk […]

She Puts the Sparx in Sparx & Arrows

| June 20, 2019

Kara Sparx was a character in Cobalt City that I attached myself to early on. She was mostly a minor background character in some of the initial Cobalt City books, but I wanted to do more with her. After all, she was a nerdy techie with a cool robot, and who did a lot of […]

Lady Huntsman in Cobalt City

| April 30, 2019

One of the concepts I introduce in my stories in Sparx & Arrows is that of the Lady Huntsman. In the Cobalt City Universe, Huntsman is a legacy superhero–a mantle that’s been handed down almost exclusively in the male line of one of Cobalt City’s founding families. Note the almost. Whenever I hear a qualifier like that, […]

Sparx and Arrows and More in Cobalt City

| January 24, 2019

The majority of my Cobalt City writing has revolved around Kara Sparx, inventor extraordinaire, and various incarnations of the Huntsman. And most of those stories can be found in Sparx and Arrows, which I published in 2016. In 2019, I’ve got more in the works, first dealing with Gray Dawn, a sonic-based hero with a career as […]

Winter Reads: Rites & Desires

| November 21, 2018

Do you prefer your leading ladies both wicked and lovable (even if they wouldn’t call themselves lovable)? You might just adore Rites & Desires by Amanda Cherry. Set in the Cobalt City Universe, this book is the first in that universe to feature a villain as the protagonist, and Ruby Killingsworth is the best kind of […]

Book Recommendations: Cobalt City

| September 19, 2018

Sometimes, I only wind up reading books because I’m editing them, and that’s the case with the books I’m talking about today. I’ve recently edited three books for DefCon One Publishing in the Cobalt City Universe, which I also write in. All of these books are re-releases, but I did a little bit of polishing […]

“Happily Never After” in The Colored Lens!

| August 23, 2018

The latest issue of The Colored Lens is out, and with it comes my story, “Happily Never After.” “Happily Never After” is a Cobalt City-adjacent story. It’s actually set in Cerulean City, on the West Coast, but some of the characters in it are from Cobalt City. This is a sort of prequel story for […]

If You Could Go Anywhere …

| May 15, 2018

One of the awesome things about Cobalt City is that it’s one of many worlds that’s a part of something called the Coil. There are infinite variations that can be found, with the right technology. My story, “Big in Japan,” explores one such alternate world that Kara Sparx somewhat accidentally stumbles into. She’s trying to […]

An Interview with Author Amanda Cherry

| February 28, 2018

Today, I’m interviewing Amanda Cherry, whose first book, Rites & Desires, will be out on March 20, 2018! It’s the first Cobalt City novel with a villain as the protagonist, and those of us in the Cobalt City family are super excited to have a fresh new voice in the universe. I asked Amanda to answer […]