DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

The Tales to Terrify horror fiction podcast has returned after a two week hiatus (while host Larry Santoro took care of some pressing deadlines.) The new episode contains my first “Tour of the Abattoir” audio column of 2014, in which I talk about horror music,

Last year this time I was ill and bedridden. This year, I’m simply inconvenienced thanks to a kaput computer. I consider this a step up.   In fact I was so sick at this time in 2012 that my year-end summary didn’t turn up until

The week before Christmas, a power surge took out my computer and our stove. The night of Christmas Eve, I learned that once again the excerpt from my novel The Black Fire Concerto was the most read story at Black Gate Magazine — Olyssa and

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was delighted and pleasantly surprised to learn that the excerpt from my novel The Black Fire Concerto was October’s most read story at Black Gate Magazine.   Black Gate overlord John O’Neill told me the excerpt not only won the

It’s different from writer to writer and from novel to novel. The Bull Spec blog has a series called the “The Hardest Part” in which writers confess what was most difficult about scribbling out their books. Samuel Montgomery-Blinn generously invited me to share what made

This notice is mainly for those associate and active SFWA members who have access to the private forums. I’ve made all of the following available there for those looking for material for Nebula consideration. #SFWApro     The Black Fire Concerto (novel, by me!) PDF,

The Roanoke launch party for The Black Fire Concerto took place this past Tuesday (Oct. 22) in a cozy space at the Raleigh Court Library. (Technically this is the second launch party for the book; the first one happened in July at ReaderCon.) Since I

The Raleigh Court Branch Library is holding the Roanoke launch party for my first novel, The Black Fire Concerto, the story of a pair of sorceress-musicians who fight necromancers and ghouls in a post-apocalyptic future. My friend Anne Sampson will provide some beautifully eerie music

I’m pleased to report that Strange Horizons is buying my new poem “The Paper Boy,” a grim meditation on a crime’s aftermath. Thanks go to Romie Stott for accepting it and to Dominik Parisien for motivating me to write it. #SFWApro   I’m also pleased

The reviewer behind the Just Book Reading blog just came out with a review of The Black Fire Concerto. Not all reviews are like surprise presents, but this one is.   I listened to the first part of this book when it was featured on