History That Never Was

Home of Dawn Vogel: Writer, Historian, Geek

TV Recommendation: Peacemaker

| February 23, 2022

We’ve been watching Peacemaker on HBO Max, which originally was a show we weren’t so sure about. John Cena’s Peacemaker character in The Suicide Squad was kind of a jerk. But we like John Cena as a human being (he seems smart, articulate, and kind, despite some of his in-ring antics and roles he’s played), so we […]

Superhero Book Sale!

| November 25, 2021

If you’ve been considering getting one of my superhero books, the majority of the ebooks are a part of the Superhero-Fiction Black Friday sale, beginning tomorrow and running through December 2nd! You can pick up my books and other ebooks featuring superheroes, and all of the ebooks in the sale are only 99 cents! Heck, […]

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 […]

Cobalt City Dragonstorm Out Today!

| September 28, 2021

DefCon One Publishing has a new anthology out today, the first in five years from the authors of Cobalt City. Cobalt City Dragonstorm is a collection of five short stories featuring superheroes (and supervillains) fighting dragons from other dimensions. My story in this collection is “Dead Souls,” featuring the team-up of Dulcamara, Terra Firma, and […]

Review of Powered Personnel: The Big Startup by K. A. Maxwell

| September 15, 2021

Powered Personnel: The Big Startup by K. A. Maxwell (2021) is an interesting look at how the corporate world might look when it’s controlled by people with super powers. The book centers on Chloe Ceres, recently hired by a major corporation to start a new department, along with her best friend, Melinda. The two women […]

My Superhero Books

| September 14, 2021

There are two genres at the top of my list for how many books I’ve published in them. One of those two is superhero books! While most of my superhero books are collections of short stories, that just gives you a lot more heroes to enjoy! Heroes of Necessity is my collection of unlikely hero […]

Convention of Heroes Recap

| June 28, 2021

Last week was the Convention of Heroes, an online event hosted by Superhero-Fiction.com. There were a ton of great panels, and the best news is that you can watch recordings of all of them on YouTube! I particularly found the “How to Craft a Hero” and “Captivating World Building” panels useful for someone who writes […]

“Fortissimo Possibile” in Heroes of Necessity

| April 20, 2021

“Fortissimo Possibile” was one of the two stories in Heroes of Necessity that was written to a specific prompt. In this case, the prompt was for stories that involved low-powered superheroes–the sort that some might consider to be heroes with “useless” powers. But no powers are “useless,” when it comes down to it. Leila’s power […]

Fun for Friday: Superhero Writing Prompts

| April 16, 2021

I’ve got superheroes on my mind lately, as I’ve been working on some Cobalt City stories and proofreading a friend’s Cobalt City-adjacent novella. So for today’s Fun for Friday, check out these superhero writing prompts. They’re in the form of first sentences/paragraphs, so you may want to make some changes to make your story a little […]

The Cobalt City Roots of Sparx and Arrows

| March 25, 2021

Of the five stories in Sparx and Arrows, only three of them take part entirely in Cobalt City, the home to many superheroes, and where each of the heroes in this collection got their start. “Big in Japan,” as the name might suggest, is one of the two stories not entirely within Cobalt City. This story […]