History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Spooky Stories and Novella

| October 25, 2022

If you’re looking for some spooky Halloween reads, I’ve got a few options available! Volatile Figments is a collection of six dark contemporary fantasy short stories in which the protagonists deal with the supernatural. They generally tend toward dark contemporary fantasy rather than horror, so they’re spooky without being terrifying. Doorways in the Gloom is […]

Stephen Fry on Rhyme, Part 3

| October 24, 2022

As I mentioned previously, I’m working through Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled very slowly to absorb as much wisdom as I can about writing poetry. This week’s post covers Chapter 2, Section 3, on rhyme. This section of the chapter talked a lot about bad rhymes, which might be better called “forced” rhymes. The words technically […]

Stephen Fry on Rhyme, Part 2

| September 26, 2022

As I mentioned previously, I’m working through Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled very slowly to absorb as much wisdom as I can about writing poetry. This week’s post covers Chapter 2, Section 2, on rhyme. This is the shortest section that I’ve looked at so far, which mainly exists to introduce the ideas of the […]

Sci-Fi Stories and Collections!

| September 22, 2022

If you’re a sci-fi fan, I’ve got a sci-fi collection that might appeal to you! New Moons Under Which to Sleep contains previously published sci-fi short stories, flash fiction pieces, and a couple of poems, plus a couple of pieces that were new to the collection. My other recent sci-fi publications are: “Slime, or Primordial […]

Other Tales in Old Legends and New Fables

| August 30, 2022

I’ve talked about the various cultures by which my various stories and poems in Old Legends and New Fables were inspired, but I’ve also included some that aren’t as easily grouped together. I’ve got a few poems inspired by the legends and fables of the Americas, like the “woman in white” said to haunt the roads […]

Stephen Fry on Rhyme, Part 1

| August 29, 2022

As I mentioned previously, I’m working through Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled very slowly to absorb as much wisdom as I can about writing poetry. This week’s post covers Chapter 2, Section 1, on rhyme. Rhyme is something that I’ve always felt more comfortable with, especially compared to meter. And as Stephen Fry explains, that’s true […]

“Terraformer of Bigotry” Nominated for Utopia Awards!

| August 17, 2022

My poem, “Terraformer of Bigotry” is one of the nominees for the first Utopia Awards! You can vote for it (and items in other categories of utopian fiction) here! I’m super excited to have my first award nomination, and I’m delighted that it’s for this poem, which dreams of a world in which bigotry could […]

New Pieces Out in July 2022

| August 4, 2022

I had two new sci-fi pieces out in July, one poem and one short story! My poem, “The Way Forward is a Maze,” appeared in the Veterans of Alien Wars issue of Eye to the Telescope. I wrote this poem for this call for submissions, and it turned out well. The poem is about how […]

Stephen Fry on Meter, Part 6

| August 1, 2022

As I mentioned previously, I’m working through Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled very slowly to absorb as much wisdom as I can about writing poetry. This week’s post covers Chapter 1, Section 6, on syllabic verse. This is a very short section, and interestingly for me, it basically describes a lot of the poetry that […]

Celtic Tales in Old Legends and New Fables

| July 28, 2022

Celtic tales worked their way into three of the poems of Old Legends and New Fables, specifically “A Man of the Earth,” “The Cromlech Glen, and “If You See the Black Dog.” I haven’t been able to retrace the details of the legend that inspired “A Man of the Earth,” but it has some bits in […]