History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

A Question from the Audience: Starting Stories

| September 9, 2019

I recently had a question from one of my fellow author friends, which I was given with an eye toward blogging about the topic. So here we go. First ever question from the audience! Do you always start writing in the same place? Scene? Character? Descriptions? Dialogue? Start-to-finish? End first and write backward? Write the […]

“Hashtag TPE” out now!

| August 1, 2019

Broken Eye Books has begun posting the stories in It Came from Miskatonic University to their Patreon, and my story, “Hashtag TPE,” is available now! It’s the story of a campus tour leader trying to keep all of her charges alive (and get them to enroll) during a tour of the Miskatonic University campus. This […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Upcoming Stories

| January 22, 2019

I’ve already had a couple of short story sales in 2019, which is fantastic news! My flash fiction piece, “Brick-Red Love,” will be published in The Arcanist in April. This was one of my Drawlloween pieces that I’ve finished, and I’m happy to find it a home. The other story I’ve sold is “Earworm,” which will […]

“Happily Never After” in The Colored Lens!

| August 23, 2018

The latest issue of The Colored Lens is out, and with it comes my story, “Happily Never After.” “Happily Never After” is a Cobalt City-adjacent story. It’s actually set in Cerulean City, on the West Coast, but some of the characters in it are from Cobalt City. This is a sort of prequel story for […]

“Parcel Post” in Frostfire Worlds

| August 14, 2018

The August 2018 issue of Frostfire Worlds includes my story, “Parcel Post.” Frostfire Worlds is a magazine of stories for kids, and in my case, my story is also about kids. The idea for “Parcel Post” started with the fun fact that in the early twentieth century (roughly around 1913), you could mail small children. Sort […]

“The Glorious Dead” in Bards and Sages Quarterly!

| July 10, 2018

The latest Bards and Sages Quarterly is now out, and it includes my story “The Glorious Dead,” the story of cousins and zombies in the American Civil War. Bards and Sages published one of my longer stories as a stand-alone last year, and it will be appearing in a collection from them later this year. I’ll […]