History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Coming Soon on Kickstarter: I Am the First

| November 3, 2021

Author Jeremy Flagg (author of the Children of Nostradamus series) and artist Amanda Kahl (primary author and sole artist for Age of Night) have teamed up to create I Am the First, a graphic novel that spotlights a gay youth as he overcomes trauma and untangles his identity while dealing with uncanny abilities. For many, this […]

Review of The Awakening by Dusk Peterson

| October 27, 2021

The Awakening by Dusk Peterson (Love in Dark Settings Press, 2021) is the first book in their Dungeon Guards series. An alternate history story, it consists of four interconnected novellas about guards who work in the Eternal Dungeon and their lives both within and out of the dungeon. The alternate history aspect of this book […]

Site Recommendation: 101 LGBTQ Picture Books!

| September 8, 2021

If you’re looking for a good book recommendation for a kid that’s more in the age range for picture books than books they read on their own, check out 101 LGBTQ Picture Books! Created by a college student who decided to read all of the LGBTQ picture books she could find, rather than trying to […]

Review of It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility edited by Isabela Oliveira and Jed Sabin

| August 4, 2021

It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility, edited by Isabela Oliveira and Jed Sabin (Speculatively Queer, 2021), is a lovely collection of 22 affirming stories of queer possibility. The stories range between science fiction and fantasy, worlds you can easily recognize and those you can’t, and always filled to the brim with queer characters […]

“Hearts in Motion” in New Maps!

| January 28, 2021

My first published story in 2021 is “Hearts in Motion” in the debut issue of New Maps. “Hearts in Motion” is my post-apocalyptic meet cute story of two teenage girls from different social groups in the middle of what has become a desert long before they were born. It was a story spawned from three […]

Moms Having Adventures in Cross & Circle

| January 26, 2021

Not too long ago, someone on Twitter was looking for fantasy books that involve mothers as protagonists. Their ask was related to epic/high fantasy, not urban fantasy. If they’d been interested in urban fantasy, I could have recommended Cross and Circle. In Cross and Circle, Evie is pregnant for a good chunk of the book, then […]

Awesome Finds: It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility

| December 23, 2020

I’m looking forward to It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility, which is currently funding on Kickstarter. It will be an anthology of “speculative short fiction about positive queer possibility”. The idea of an anthology full of positive stories with queer characters is absolutely delightful to me, and I can’t wait to read it. The […]

Review of Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn’t Die

| December 16, 2020

Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn’t Die, edited by dave ring (Neon Hemlock Press, 2020), is a collection of stories and a couple of poems about queer characters in a post-apocalyptic world. The stories range from funny to heartbreaking, while making stops at nearly every point in the range of human […]

Review of Why Didn’t Someone Warn You About Prince Charming by Jameson Currier

| December 4, 2019

My latest book review is up at Mad Scientist Journal, for Why Didn’t Someone Warn You About Prince Charming? by Jameson Currier. It’s a collection of short stories with gay male protagonists, and it’s a really neat look at how one author has written variations on a common theme! You can check out my review here, or […]

An Interview with Heather Rose Jones

| December 2, 2019

Today, I’m chatting with Heather Rose Jones about her new book, Floodtide, her Lesbian Historic Motif Project, and other matters of writing and history! Heather Rose Jones is the author of the Alpennia historic fantasy series: an alternate-Regency-era Ruritanian adventure revolving around women’s lives woven through with magic, alchemy, and intrigue. Her short fiction has […]