DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

The eclectic interview site Van Gogh’s Ear has published the first new creative work of mine to appear in 2015, my poem “Sad Wisps of Empty Smoke.” It certainly nestles well with the dark work I’ve had published of late. For all its baroque imagery,

Actually, it’s been available since New Year’s Eve, but I’ve only now gotten around to writing a blog post about it. If you’re willing to brave a 30-day free trial of Audible.com, than you can get my new book free along with it. I’m thrilled

I woke up this morning to the news that my book Unseaming is a nominee for the 2014 This Is Horror Awards in the category Short Story Collection of the Year. Both nominations and awards are chosen by popular vote, and the competition is fearsome,

So this was a surprise. A reader (or is that listener?) contacted me in late September via Twitter to tell me how much he enjoyed The Black Fire Concerto excerpt that appeared on Tales to Terrify (“Part One: The Red Empress,” read by the amazing

My thanks to the voting membership of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, who bestowed a 2nd place Rhysling Award (in the “long poem” category) on my poem “Hungry Constellations,” which first appeared as a feature presentation in the absolutely essential Goblin Fruit, and is now

Well, hey, here’s one of those rare and elusive poetry reviews one occasionally hears rumors of, spotted in the wild: Nameless Digest has published a very flattering review (by contributing editor Sunni Brock) of my new poetry collection Hungry Constellations:   Allen’s fiction ideas are

As I’ve said, Amazon “bestseller” lists don’t mean much. That reiterated, Unseaming has so far been successful enough (by my standards) to afford me a fair amount of fun as it bobs up and down in the Kindle “Horror Short Stories” rankings.   This is

My horror story “Tardigrade” is out in Jason V. Brock’s A Darke Phantastique anthology, which as a physical object is easily the most opulently baroque thing I’ve ever been in. I know this because my copy arrived today:     Other contributors: Joe R. Landsdale,

I suppose I should start with the obvious: my first ever short story collection Unseaming is new this year and eligible in “best story collection” categories. Someone saw fit to suggest it be included in this completely unofficial list, which still tickles me to no

Continuing my gradual catch-up between projects (more on what those projects are in future entries):   I’ve sold a new short story, a sweetly nasty tongue-in-grotesque-cheek little short called “Tick Flick.” It’s kind of horror, kind of sci-fi, kind of within the margins of “the