History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

She Puts the Sparx in Sparx & Arrows

| June 20, 2019

Kara Sparx was a character in Cobalt City that I attached myself to early on. She was mostly a minor background character in some of the initial Cobalt City books, but I wanted to do more with her. After all, she was a nerdy techie with a cool robot, and who did a lot of […]

Review of Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures by Alex Acks

| June 19, 2019

My newest book review is up at Mad Scientist Journal. Today, I’m reviewing Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures by Alex Acks, which is the sequel collection to Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures, which I reviewed back in January. Wireless is three more stories featuring the same characters as Murder on the Titania, and they […]

Out Now: “One-Tenth”

| June 11, 2019

I’ve got another story out as of the beginning of June. The Eastern Iowa Review picked up my short science-fiction story, “One-Tenth.” I don’t remember what inspired me to write this story, but I do know that it was one that I started to write and then didn’t know how to finish. After letting it […]

Heroes of Necessity: Running in Seattle

| June 6, 2019

I got the idea to write “Origin Story” while I was driving behind a car with multiple marathon stickers plastered across its back end. Seeing all of those stickers made me think what Seattle would be like if the zombie apocalypse hit. Would we get fast zombies simply because there are so many runners in […]

Recent Stories

| May 30, 2019

Two of my stories have come out recently! “I Believe,” which is a flash piece about imaginary friends, is out now at The Future Fire. It’s very short and very sweet, and won’t take you long at all to read! I’ve mentioned the Bargains anthology from Pine Float Press before, but it’s now available at […]

“Princess Last Picked” out now!

| April 18, 2019

Swords, Sorcery, & Self-Rescuing Damsels is out this week, including my story, “Princess Last Picked.” As I mentioned before, it’s a sweet middle grade story about a princess and her friends saving the day. It’s set in a quasi-Celtic fantasy world, and involves cleverness winning out over strength and magic. I had a lot of […]

Upcoming Story Releases!

| April 4, 2019

I’ve got four stories coming out in April and May, three of which are in anthologies, and the fourth of which (which actually comes out first) is a quick read! On April 12, you’ll be able to read my story, “Brick-Red Love,” at The Arcanist. This is one of the stories I wrote during Drawlloween (using […]

Short Story Recommendation: Deacon Carter’s Last Dime

| April 3, 2019

One of the really wonderful things about being an author is making friend with other authors, and getting to read their stuff. My friend Nathan Crowder writes amazing stuff, and he’s just republished one of my all time favorite stories of his, “Deacon Carter’s Last Dime.” It originally appeared in Crossed Genres Magazine years ago, and […]

Review of Broken Metropolis edited by dave ring

| February 27, 2019

My latest book review is up at Mad Scientist Journal, for an anthology of stories with queer protagonists called Broken Metropolis. Within, you’ll find 10 short pieces ranging all over the urban fantasy landscape. A number of the stories feature some wonderful magical realism, while others involve clearly supernatural creatures. You can read my review here, or […]

Quiet Moments of Heroism

| February 19, 2019

Heroes of Necessity is a collection with a lot of quiet moments. These stories aren’t knock down, drag out fights between people in capes and spandex. Instead, the stories focus on discoveries of powers and new applications of powers, and using those powers to fix things without necessarily fighting them. In “Fortissimo Possibile,” Leila argues […]