History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

Love in What If I’m a Merfolk?

| December 16, 2021

Some of the poetry in What If I’m a Merfolk? revolves around love among the merfolk, or love between a merfolk and a human. While merfolk and humans are often antagonistic toward each other, that isn’t always the case. My short story, “Catch,” is one example of this, telling the tale of a young woman and […]

My November 2021 Publications

| December 9, 2021

I only had a couple of new stories out in November, far fewer than the abundance of October! My flash fiction piece, “There Is No ‘I’ in Heavenly Host,” came out in Friends Journal at the beginning of the month. This was for their special speculative fiction issue, and I got the idea for it […]

New Publications in October 2021

| November 4, 2021

October was a BUSY month for new publications for me, with stories out throughout the entire month, plus one poem! “Just Smile,” a flash piece, was my first publication of the month at The Dread Machine. It’s a yokai story, this one about the hari onago. If you’ve heard of this yokai before, you’ll understand […]

September 2021 Story and Poetry Releases

| October 7, 2021

I had two new pieces come out in September. First, my poem “The Turn of the Seasons” was published in Sylvia Magazine. This poem is a double acrostic poem–it’s easy to notice the letters spelling out summer and winter at the beginning of the lines, but the last letter of each line also spells out autumn […]

New Stories and Poetry Out Recently!

| July 8, 2021

I’ve had two stories and one poem published recently, all of which are available online! The first is “Wishes without a Birthday Cake,” in Land Beyond the World. This story came out of a writing sprint class that I took with K. Tempest Bradford (which I talked about here). The story underwent some revisions to […]

“The Actor-Observer Effect” in Unfixed Timelines 2

| March 23, 2021

I work alongside archaeologists and anthropologists in my day job, so it’s no surprise that some of their terminology infects my brain, and thus my writing. I’ve also become keenly aware over the years about just how flawed a lot of early anthropological work was, with the practitioners inflicting their own understanding of how the […]

At What Cost? now out!

| October 22, 2020

I’ve got a new story out this week! “At What Cost?” is included in the second volume of the House of Zolo’s Journal of Speculative Literature. The inspiration for this story came from the week-long stints I used to do for work, where I would drive into a former limestone quarry known as “The Cave” […]

“Charcoals from an Unidentified Chicago Artist” out now!

| May 12, 2020

I’ve got a new story out in Community of Magic Pens, “Charcoals from an Unidentified Chicago Artist.” This story was born out of a trip to Chicago and a realization of just how many fires have ravaged that city. The “magic pen” in my story is a box of art tools that remain tied to the […]

“Earworm” out in Space Opera Libretti!

| January 14, 2020

Coming out in the last minute of 2019 means that it took me a little while to have the space to post about it, but my story, “Earworm” is now out in Space Opera Libretti, an anthology that involves both space and opera! Back when I announced the sale of this story, I mentioned that it […]

A Story and a Poem

| December 5, 2019

I have both a story reprint and a new poem out recently! The story is “Far from Home,” which appears in the November 2019 issue of Frostfire Worlds. This one is available only in print. The poem is “Radiance and Obscurity (A Paradelle),” which appears in the November 2019 issue of Liquid Imagination. This one is one […]