DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

Saturday, I’ll be one of a host of intriguing writer guests reading and giving talks at an event near Atlanta called The Outer Dark Symposium of the Greater Weird. It’s an event created by Anya Martin and Scott Nicolay, the masterminds behind the Outer Dark

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

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

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

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

Since mid-April, I’ve started a new chapter.   Not so much in any particular writing project, of which I have several ongoing, but in my writing life as a whole.   This “new chapter” feeling comes not from fresh goals I’ve set for myself, but

This past week, Publishers Weekly reviewed my new short story collection, The Spider Tapestries, and I feel like one lucky author, because whoever wrote the review seems to have understood my super-strange little book on every level. The gist of the review: “Elegant language and

Recently Best Horror of the Year editor Ellen Datlow posted her annual recommended reading list, and I was pleased to see that four of my stories from 2014 made the bloody cut.   On the honorable mention roll call: “The Quiltmaker,” my novella-length sequel to