DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

Paula Friedlander’s illustration for Jessica Wick’s poem “Nobody’s Song.”

Paula Friedlander’s illustration for Sonya Taaffe’s poem “The Description of a Wish.”

Just a reminder to folks that you have until Oct. 1 (this coming Saturday) if you want to submit poems to be considered for Mythic Delirium 26. Guidelines are here. I haven’t been as ruthlessly efficient this reading period as I was with the last

Last night Anita and I sorted out the official table of contents for Mythic Delirium 25. And here it is: Myths and Delusions • Editorial • 2 Elegy for Robert Sheckley • Florence Major • 3 Joseph Carey Merrick • Florence Major • 5 Babel

Monday brings me two new precious things. First, my new poem “La Donna del Lago,” dedicated to Claire (C.S.E.) Cooney, has appeared at Strange Horizons. Fitting, as it’s the last of the “Claire-dare” poems that she inspired (though not the last to appear in print.)

Some folks have already gotten the word. Guidelines here.

Writer/poet Francesca Forrest, who is also part of my volunteer “staff” for Mythic Delirium, is holding a guessing game contest. Enter it to win free copies of Issue 23 and Issue 24. For further details, click over to her blog.

The latest podcast from Hugo Award-winning StarShipSofa features the second installment of Diane Severson’s Poetry Planet, which, in the name of exploring the theme of “first contact,” contains two of my poems, “The Thing in the Gutter” and “On Discovery of a Habitable World.” The

I’m pleased to announce that the following poems by the following poets have been accepted for Issue 25 of Mythic Delirium, which I hope to have out in early October. • “An Unkindness of Ravens” • Rachel Manija Brown • “Claiming Tyche; Nemesis Rising” • Michael