History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

“Drink Me” in Heroes of Necessity

| March 26, 2020

What happens when you mash up Spring Break in Cabo with Alice in Wonderland and a weird ability? You get “Drink Me,” one of my short stories included in Heroes of Necessity. I’m not sure which of the various ideas that I threw together for “Drink Me” came first, but I suspect it was the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

FREE Short Story Collections!

| July 19, 2018

Three of the collections of my short stories that I’ve published through DefCon One Publishing are available for FREE this month through Smashwords! If you’ve been thinking about picking up one (or more) of them, now is the time to do it! Through the end of the month, you can get Heroes of Necessity, Unfixed Timelines, […]

Quick Summer Reads: Heroes of Necessity

| June 21, 2018

If you’re looking for short stories to enjoy this summer, check out Heroes of Necessity! This collection contains four short stories, all of which are quick reads (each story is less than 5,000 words), starring a variety of low-powered woman heroes. What’s better, you don’t need any background information to get into these stories–they each stand […]

What Makes a Hero?

| April 19, 2018

Is a hero defined by their actions or by their powers? I’m inclined to think it’s the former, because there are a lot of “super heroes” who don’t actually have superpowers. Batman, Hawkeye, and many others just have training and skill, rather than powers that come from some weird source. By that token, even the […]

Holiday Reading: Heroes of Necessity

| December 28, 2017

Back when I worked at a university, I had the whole week between Christmas and New Years off from work. I don’t have that perk anymore, but I know a lot of people who take time between the holidays to relax. If you’ve got a lot of time and are looking for something to read, […]