History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Coming in November: Weathering Youth!

| October 10, 2024

My next collection, Weathering Youth, will be out on November 12, and it’s a collection of stories and poetry featuring younger protagonists and others with a youthful outlook on the world! In worlds with dragons, starships, and monsters, adults aren’t the only people. Children, teenagers, and young adults are sometimes the heroes of the story … […]

Books and Stories for Younger Readers

| May 16, 2024

I’ve got some recent story publications that are suitable for younger readers, along with several books, including steampunk and fantasy titles! My flash fiction story “Dinosaur Seeds” is written for an adult audience, but kids would very likely enjoy this story, which involves a child planting “dinosaur” seeds and the surprising results! This story can […]

Books for Kids

| September 19, 2023

I’ve got several books for kids, including steampunk and fantasy! The Trouble with the Tick-Tock Tabby is a middle grade book featuring girl detectives Chrysanthemum and Marigold Marsh. The setting is a steampunk Victorian era. The characters are 9 and 12 years old, which skews toward the younger end of middle grade, but the reading level […]

Review of The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

| May 3, 2023

Years ago, when I was a kid, my grandma took me to see The Black Cauldron in the theater. This stands out to me mainly because we were the ONLY people in the theater for a weekday matinee. But I recalled enjoying the movie, which I’ve probably seen once or twice since them. Meanwhile, my husband […]

“Princess Last Picked” in Conceits of Whim and Fancy

| February 16, 2023

A few of the stories in Conceits of Whim and Fancy feature younger protagonists, and “Princess Last Picked” is one of them. This was a story inspired by the idea of presenting an unlikely character to save the members of her community when their greatest strength (literally) was used against them. I was utterly thrilled with […]

Things for Kids to Read

| January 12, 2023

I’ve recently published my third book for younger readers to read, so it’s time to update this list! The Spiders of the Shifting Swamp is my children’s picture book that I also illustrated! It’s a fantasy story in which spiders run a shop and interact with other swamp creatures. The reading level is about right […]

“The Wearisome Worry of the Wily Waif” in C. & M. Marsh, Girl Detectives

| December 29, 2022

“The Wearisome Worry of the Wily Waif” is the sole Marsh sisters story I’ve written that has not been picked up for publication. But I included it in C. and M. Marsh, Girl Detectives because I think it’s a good story. It’s a little different than the other Marsh sisters stories, which have the girls confronting […]

New Pieces out in November 2022

| December 8, 2022

This past month saw publication of a short story, a couple of pieces of flash fiction, and a poem! “Chrysopoeia,” a flash fiction piece about a charlatan and the person who reveals him for what he really is, appeared in The Dire Dark, which is an anthology of dark fantasy pieces. My short story “Easy […]

“The Magnificent Matter of the Mischievous Monkey” in C. & M. Marsh, Girl Detectives

| November 24, 2022

“The Magnificent Matter of the Mischievous Monkey” was technically my third Marsh sisters story, as I wrote it after The Trouble with the Tick-Tock Tabby. It’s also the title in this series I’m most likely to foul up, as it went through a few iterations before I got it to work within my self-dictated naming […]

My Steampunk Books

| November 15, 2022

If you enjoy reading steampunk, I’ve got five books, for both adult readers and younger readers! First off, I have the Brass and Glass trilogy: Brass and Glass: The Cask of Cranglimmering is the first in the series, followed by Brass and Glass 2: The Long-Cursed Map and Brass and Glass 3: The Boiling Sea. These […]