DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

I’ve often broken the informal “three things make a blog post” law, but this time around I fully intended to combine three things in one post, heh. Thing One: I’m delighted that Clockwork Phoenix 5 made the 2016 Locus Recommending Reading List and thus is

Starting today at Apex Magazine, my 20,000-word horror story “The Quiltmaker” is free for all to read. This is easily my most gruesome published work to date, originally available only in my Shirley Jackson Award-nominated collection Unseaming. My thanks to Jason Sizemore and his crew

Overall, 2016 was a pretty mixed year for us. We lost our dog, Loki, a sweet soul who’d been the cheerfully goofy center of our household since 2003. I had injury-related health issues that haven’t fully gone away and Anita had an unwelcome surprise on

2016 was a strange year for me (and a stressful one, too, though in ways that have little bearing on this post). My output as a publisher was pretty spectacular by personal standards — my awards eligibility post for Mythic Delirium Books can be found

In the Sudden Plot Twist department, I’m taking another pause from preparing for the World Fantasy Convention to share that: A) My 20,000-word horror novella “The Quiltmaker,” sequel to my Nebula Award-nominated monster story “The Button Bin” and centerpiece (more or less) of my Shirley

Anita and I will be at the World Fantasy Convention this weekend, primarily to cheer on C.S.E. Cooney, whose book from our imprint, Bone Swans: Stories, is up for the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection against some very stiff competition. Our fingers are crossed

Editor Brian Sammons have graciously accepted my new story “Aftermath of an Industrial Accident” for his upcoming anthology Transmissions from Punktown a tribute anthology to the Punktown stories created by Jeffrey Thomas. My story, a sci-fi/horror/workplace satire hybrid, might be the most gruesome I’ve come

It’s an honor to return to the “pages” of Podcastle — the venerable fantasy podcast site has released an audio adaption of my dark-fantasy-teetering-at-the-edge-of-horror short story “The Cruelest Team Will Win,” just in time for the Halloween season.   Published last year in Rhonda Parrish’s

Last time I wrote an update, Anita and I were about to drive up to Readercon in Boston. A whole lot has happened since, some of it fun, most of it not fun at all, but for purposes of this update I’m sticking to the

I’m very pleased about my final schedule of readings and panels at Readercon in Boston this weekend. Anita and I look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones.   We’ll also have copies of all our books with us (our big push will