History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

“The Price” in Dead-Starred Futures

| August 27, 2024

“The Price” is a short flash fiction piece that deals with a weighty subject–in a world impacted by climate change and rising sea levels, what price might someone be willing to pay to save other peoples’ lives. The prompt for this story came from the Furious Fiction Flash Challenge (write a flash fiction story of […]

Following Barren from Beginning to Novella

| August 1, 2024

My novella Barren started life as a short story. The story version, which I started brainstorming in 2013, had a different sort of apocalypse in which only plants had stopped growing. My main character, Lemy, was a much younger woman in the story, having been born after the point when the sea levels rose, creating the […]

“On the Surface” in Dead-Starred Futures

| July 25, 2024

“On the Surface” is a microfiction piece set in a post-apocalyptic world in which humans have been forced belowground due to environmental conditions that make living aboveground impractical. However, the unnamed narrator dreams (literally) of people living on the surface and searches for a way to investigate this possibility. “On the Surface” is only available […]

Seattle Summers and the Apocalypse

| July 18, 2024

It seems like July is the month when Seattle remembers what summer is about, at least some years. As I look back over my Facebook memories, I often see comments on the hot weather once July opens. This year is no exception, with 80+ degree temperatures dragging on for multiple days.(*) As such, my mind […]

“Seeds of Knowledge” in Dead-Starred Futures

| June 25, 2024

My microfiction piece “Seeds of Knowledge” was inspired by watching some videos about the Svalbard seed vault in Norway and imagining how a similar facility on an alien planet, where explorers don’t read the language, might look. Compared to other stories in Dead-Starred Futures, it seems a bit more positive on the surface, but the lack […]

My May 2024 Publications!

| June 6, 2024

I announced this last week as well, but my one May publication was my story, “The Storyteller,” in Bikes, The Universe, and Everything from Microcosm Publishing. This is the eleventh volume of the Bikes in Space series, but the first one I’ve placed a story in. My story involves a post-apocalyptic culture that relies on bicycles […]

“One Book, Never Published” in Dead-Starred Futures

| May 30, 2024

My microfiction story, “One Book, Never Published,” is a brief look at how time-travel to prevent the publication of a book filled with falsehoods might turn out. If you’ve been following my posts about the stories in Dead-Starred Futures, you may already know that the answer to that is “not entirely well.” But despite that […]

Out Now: Bikes, The Universe, and Everything!

| May 29, 2024

The latest of the Bikes in Space anthologies came out last week, and this one includes my story, “The Storyteller”! It involves a post-apocalyptic culture that relies on bicycles for transportation but also a young girl who dreams up stories while she rides and goes about her daily life. You can find Bikes, The Universe, and […]

Kickstarter Recommendation: Bikes in Space 11!

| February 14, 2024

The Kickstarter for volume 11 of Bikes in Space has launched. I’m a fan of this series from Microcosm Publishing, and I’m pleased to announce that my story, “The Storyteller,” will appear in Bikes, the Universe, and Everything! The theme for this volume is bikes and books, so I wrote a post-apocalyptic story in which bikes […]

Post-Apocalyptic Stories

| January 18, 2024

My latest post-apocalyptic tales are in my collection Dead-Starred Futures. They include some dystopian and dark sci-fi stories on other worlds and some that take place on an Earth that looks very different after climate change and other things render the planet harder to make our home. In addition to this collection, I have two post-apocalyptic […]