History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Heroes of Necessity: Army of Me

| February 18, 2020

The stories in my collection, Heroes of Necessity, all revolve around women with unusual powers who become the heroes their situation requires. In “Army of Me,” an app Molly’s phone requests her assistance to combat a hacker. She’s able to enter the digital realm and manipulate code from within in order to help the app. The […]

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 […]

Review of Distaff

| August 14, 2019

I’ve just reviewed Distaff, which is a collection of nine sci-fi stories by women authors. You can check out my review at Mad Scientist Journal. It’s a nice quick read, too, which releases tomorrow at WorldCon. If you’re in Dublin, check it out there! If not, grab yourself a copy online!

Minimal Powers for Maximum Potential

| July 23, 2019

When I originally wrote “Fortissimo Possibile,” it was for a specific anthology call that wanted stories of super heroes with minimal or “useless” powers. But even the most minimal of powers can actually be useful–it’s just all in the way they’re applied. At first glance, Leila, the main character of “Fortissimo Possibile” is a divorced […]

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 […]

Review of Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures by Alex Acks

| June 19, 2019

My newest book review is up at Mad Scientist Journal. Today, I’m reviewing Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures by Alex Acks, which is the sequel collection to Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures, which I reviewed back in January. Wireless is three more stories featuring the same characters as Murder on the Titania, and they […]

Heroes of Necessity: Running in Seattle

| June 6, 2019

I got the idea to write “Origin Story” while I was driving behind a car with multiple marathon stickers plastered across its back end. Seeing all of those stickers made me think what Seattle would be like if the zombie apocalypse hit. Would we get fast zombies simply because there are so many runners in […]

Quiet Moments of Heroism

| February 19, 2019

Heroes of Necessity is a collection with a lot of quiet moments. These stories aren’t knock down, drag out fights between people in capes and spandex. Instead, the stories focus on discoveries of powers and new applications of powers, and using those powers to fix things without necessarily fighting them. In “Fortissimo Possibile,” Leila argues […]

Winter Reads: Heroes of Necessity

| November 29, 2018

If you like superheroes who are more inclined to use their minds and their hearts than their fists, Heroes of Necessity might be right up your alley! Heroes of Necessity presents four of my short stories about women with minimal superpowers helping out the world on a small scale. There’s a mom dealing with family drama, […]

Winter Reads: Sparx & Arrows

| November 27, 2018

If you’re looking for some exciting short stories to read as the days and night get colder and longer in the Northern Hemisphere, why not check out Sparx & Arrows? It’s got three stories featuring three different incarnations of the Huntsman and three stories featuring Kara Sparx (the trick is that one story features both!). […]