DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

A nice surprise at the end of an arduous if triumphant May: my Shirley Jackson Award-nominated horror story collection Unseaming earned some kind words in the latest issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction from reviewer Paul di Filippo:   “Representing sixteen years of prose output from

  #SFWApro  

It’s only fitting that Halloween was a busy week for me, beyond reading submissions for Mythic Delirium and all the little things I’m doing to promote Unseaming.   My editor at The Roanoke Times once again asked me to write an original ghost story for

So it turns out the rejuvenated Roanoke main library has a room that’s the perfect size for a reading. The first official launch reading for Unseaming turned out to be quite cozy. My thanks to Roanoke librarian Shalon Hurlbert (my good friend, whom the book

Anita and I are gonna be at the World Fantasy Convention in D.C. in two weeks, and I have my schedule in hand. Both of my scheduled events are Friday, Nov. 7:   Poetry in Fantasy: Yesterday and Today Time: 11am-12pm, Nov. 7, Regency F

My first official post-book-launch reading of Unseaming happens Tuesday, Oct. 28, 6 p.m. in the Parrot Room (heh) of the newly-renovated and reopened Roanoke Main Library. Naturally I’ll have copies for signing and selling. There will be light refreshments, though what I’m going to read

A couple people have requested copies of Unseaming signed by me, and so I thought I’d share how folks can get one.   I have my own copies of the book now (snapshot at left is proof!) for my upcoming readings at the Roanoke Main

Sci-fi author/humorist/activist/Hollywood consultant John Scalzi generously lent me his celebrated “Big Idea” platform for the day to talk about Unseaming. But this presented a challenge: how to explain the “big idea” behind a collection of short stories published over an interval of nearly 20 years?

A whole lot of cool things happened last week, and thanks to that wonderful combination of too busy and too tired, I didn’t get to do much more about them then chirp enthusiastically on Twitter. Thus this week will bring a series of blog posts

My thanks to my friend Anne Sampson for snapping photos from my reading in Roanoke this past Friday, and thus providing evidence that it actually happened, hee, and that there were even people there! I read a couple short bits from Unseaming, as well as