DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

The upcoming fourth issue of Fantastique Unfettered has cover art based on my poem “Binary,” plus a feature devoted to my poetry. There may be other stuff, too, yet to be determined. Plus Scottish novelist and activist Hal Duncan! They shared it on their website,

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.)

A new website, Versification, chartered by Erzebet YellowBoy Carr, posts reviews of speculative poetry. The site debuted this week, and three of its reviews, all reprints, concern me: there’s Amal El-Mohtar’s review of my last collection, The Journey to Kailash; Deborah J. Brannon’s review of

Bull Spec poetry editor Dan Campbell offers a review of the poems in the upcoming Fantastique Unfettered 3, and makes mention of the interview with me that’s appearing there. …do read it for a hint of how Allen performs his poems and an insight into

Anita and I intend to host a book launch for C.S.E. Cooney’s Jack o’ the Hills and Nicole Kornher-Stace’s The Winter Triptych from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday — it should serve as something of a bridge between the Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories reading and

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.

Today, zany Tony Smith of Hugo Award-winning StarShipSofa posted my reading of Eric James Stone’s Nebula Award-winning, Hugo Award-nominated novelette “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made.” If you want a listen, click here. When Tony first asked me to make this recording, “Leviathan” was still

After a week full of rejections for both new poems and new stories — so it goes — I finished up with a nice poetry sale, to Strange Horizons. The poem is called “La Donna del Lago,” and it’s dedicated to Claire Cooney. It was

The first issue of Inkscrawl has just appeared, featuring a creepy little poem called “Unland, Unlife,” which I wrote based on a dream my wife had. Several other good pieces in this issue, though I feel a need to call special attention to Rose Lemberg’s

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