DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

The latest edition of Tales to Terrify contains a new “Tour of the Abattoir” column from me, in which I discuss why I’m not a Scott Sigler junkie. And I’ve been so swamped these past couple months that I completely neglected in this space to

I’m still too busy for my own good — in other words, nothing new under the sun. The writing life isn’t the only reason why I’m busy … but it’s reason enough! So all but a handful of the Clockwork Phoenix 4 Kickstarter rewards have

Since the beginning of May I have: Spent a weekend at the home of writer Nicole Kornher-Stace and her husband Dan at a gathering that was informally dubbed “CoalCon,” with the likes of Claire Suzanne Elizabeth Cooney, Francesca Forrest, Julia Rios, Caitlyn Paxson, Dominik Parisien,

I’m thrilled to at last be able to publicly reveal the amazing cover for my first novel, The Black Fire Concerto, which makes use of a spectacular digital painting by Lauren K. Cannon. Plans were made to be foiled, but at present the plan is

To help promote the new anthology Solaris Rising 2 (which contains my short story “Still Life with Skull”) I wrote a guest post for the Solaris blog in response to a request by editor Ian Whates to discuss my favorite sf short story. “When Ian

Because I never have enough to do (heh, heh) I have proposed a discussion, a workshop and three group readings for the upcoming ReaderCon convention in July. As of last week, all have been approved. I share their descriptions below.   GROUP READING: CLOCKWORK PHOENIX

This post is a little late, but then that tricksy Larry Santoro ran my column a little early! Regardless, there’s a new “Tour of the Abattoir” up at Tales to Terrify, in which Shalon Hurlbert and I talk about Let the Right One In in

Monday, I mentioned selling my new short story “Still Life With Skull” to Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction. What I didn’t mention was the minor miracle involved in finishing it and the people I need to thank. See, as it

Tonight I’ll be performing my poem “The Strip Search” at The Best of  the Best of No Shame Theatre, 8 p.m. at Mill Mountain Theatre’s Waldron Stage on Church Avenue in downtown Roanoke. The show is close to sold out already, but I believe there

† This coming Wednesday at The Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg, I’ll be giving a presentation, “How to Run a Successful Kickstarter,” as part of PechaKucha Night Volume 3. The music starts at 6 p.m., the show at 7 p.m., space and tickets are limited. (The