History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Denizens of Distant Realms for Many Readers

| April 27, 2021

My collection of short fantasy stories, Denizens of Distant Realms, may not be for readers of all ages, but it’s a good collection of short stories for adults and teens, and maybe some older kids. There’s nothing explicit to be found within its pages, but there are a few stories that younger readers wouldn’t entirely […]

Setting Goals for 2021!

| January 5, 2021

While 2020 didn’t go entirely as planned for many folks, even after a promising start, I’m hopeful that 2021 will be an improvement. True, things can still get worse, but I’m choosing hope in terms of creating my goals this year. One of my goals for 2020 was to become agented, but that didn’t pan […]

Short Stories or Novels: Which Should You Tackle First?

| November 30, 2020

If you’re sliding into the end of November with a brand new novel draft in hand after NaNoWriMo, congratulations! If you didn’t quite reach the end of your novel, that’s okay too! What’s critical in either cases is that you finish. And then? You revise. If you’re new to writing, you may find a lot […]

My 2020 Story Publications

| November 24, 2020

I feel like I haven’t published a lot of stories this year, but then I put together a post like this, and I realize I’m incorrect in that assessment. 2020 has seemed so long that some of the stories that came out in January and February feel like they were released a lifetime ago. But […]

Review of Living Forever & Other Terrible Ideas by Emily C. Skaftun

| September 23, 2020

Emily C. Skaftun’s Living Forever & Other Terrible Ideas (Fairwood Press, 2020) is a collection of 18 of her short stories, which range from hilarious to heartbreaking. It’s a lovely mix of previously published and brand new stories, all dazzling in their prose. One trend that her modern fantasy stories, and some of the sci-fi stories, […]

Superhero Reads!

| April 9, 2020

If you’re looking for some reading escapism, may I recommend a couple of collections of superhero short stories that I’ve written? The first is Sparx and Arrows, which is Cobalt City-based stories featuring Kara Sparx and The Huntsman in three different incarnations, including both of the female Huntsmans. Kara Sparx has two solo stories, while Eleanor […]

Two New Stories!

| February 27, 2020

I’ve got two new stories out recently! “Dakota Travis, Saurallero Extraordinaire” started out with a different title about riding a dinosaur. Ultimately, it turned into a flash piece that was still about riding a dinosaur, but in an obituary format about the first man to make an art form out of riding dinosaurs on other […]

Short Story Engines

| February 3, 2020

Most people use plot or characters to make their stories go, but this article presents some other options for short story engines. It’s a very interesting read that gave me some ideas for potential future stories. It also includes some exercises for trying out some of these alternative engines, which is a fantastic place to […]

Writing to Prompts

| January 6, 2020

Last week, I talked about writing to a theme. This week, I’m talking about writing to prompts. The two things are related, but not entirely the same. Writing to prompts comes up frequently if you’re looking to challenge yourself to write a daily, weekly, or even monthly story, when you don’t necessarily have an end […]

Setting Goals for 2020

| January 2, 2020

Now that it’s 2020, it’s time to start looking at my writing goals for this coming year! Top of my list for this year is looking for an agent. I’ve got a young adult book that is pretty close to being ready to query agents with, so that’s going to be at the top of […]