History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Cover Reveal for Chimerical Remembrance

| August 21, 2025

My next collection, Chimerical Remembrance: Tales of Contemporary Fantasy, is now available for pre-order, with a release date of September 23! The world is a strange place, and the stories and poetry within Chimerical Remembrance amplify that strangeness. From selkies and werewolves to witches and ghosts, exploring unusual places, botany, candy making, and more, you’ll […]

Justice in A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages

| August 19, 2025

The Justice tarot card represents balance, fairness, and truth, with an additional meaning of “maybe” in answer to yes or no questions.  In A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages, this is represented by two poems. The first poem, “Reading Wax,” looks at this “maybe” answer in presenting another sort of fortune telling in the form of […]

My Steampunk Collection, Wreathed in Steam

| August 14, 2025

I haven’t had any steampunk stories or poems published recently, so my most recent steampunk publication is Wreathed in Steam, which collects seventeen of my steampunk pieces – eight stories and nine poems – in one place! The stories in this collection are often shorter pieces, but there are two longer stories included, and one of […]

My Worldcon Schedule!

| August 4, 2025

Worldcon is coming up August 13-17, and it’s in Seattle this year! As such, I’ll be in attendance on most of the days and involved in a variety of events! Here are my scheduled events: Reading from Sure Shot in Cobalt City: Homecoming (Wednesday, August 13, 1:30-2:00 p.m., Room 428) Historical Research for Non-Historians (Academic […]

Wheel of Fortune in A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages

| July 17, 2025

The Wheel of Fortune tarot card represents changes in fortune, the cycle of life, and destiny. In A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages, this is represented by a haiku and a poem. The haiku, titled “spiraling pattern” after its first line, is a brief reflection on fractal patterns appearing across natural things. This haiku is […]

Four Years Since Intercity Illusions

| July 10, 2025

Intercity Illusions came out four years ago, collecting a variety of contemporary fantasy stories and poetry, a large number of which had been previously published. It’s fun to look back at that collection and recall all of the pieces that went into it. That includes the cover art, which was created from a multitude of […]

Using Folklore in Fiction

| June 24, 2025

My collection Old Legends and New Fables collects stories and poems that come from folklore, mythology, and other stories from a wide variety of cultures. While most of the pieces are related to older stories, there are a few that touch on more modern mythologies and folklore. For my pieces, I often drew from stories […]

The Hermit in A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages

| June 10, 2025

The Hermit tarot card represents solitude, introspection, and the seeking of internal wisdom. In A Tarot of Sorcery and Sages, this is represented by a haiku and a short story. The haiku, with the first line “a witch’s cottage,” deals primarily with the solitude part of the Hermit’s meaning. The short story, “Architect of the […]

Sci-Fi Reads in New Moons Under Which to Sleep

| May 29, 2025

New Moons Under Which to Sleep, is one of my shorter collections, containing six short stories, three flash fiction pieces, and six poems. And though it’s quite short, it has a few pieces in it that I absolutely loved writing. The inspirations for the pieces are widely varied and include a repurposed limestone mine in […]

My Latest Sci-Fi Publications

| May 20, 2025

Since my last post about sci-fi publications, I’ve had a couple of poems and a short story published, plus some self-published pieces in Weathering Youth! My poem “An Alphabet of Forty-Two,” which is about language in a sci-fi setting where different species are in contact with one another, appeared in the October 2024 issue of […]