DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

See? I write things too!   Pic by Anita, who knows how to make me look less ugly. ;-p #SFWApro The Black Fire Concerto is not available for sale just yet, unless you buy one from me. But it won’t be long now. (UPDATE: I

It all comes down to ReaderCon. Somehow I always manage to do this. However, ReaderCon has always been very good to me, so I suppose it’s in part the con’s fault for being so encouraging. Here’s everything that is supposed to happen, that I’m going

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

Contemplating the balance the modern writer/editor has to strike between maintaining a social media presence and actually getting work done, I decided now would be a good time for an update on my juggling act. There’s a lot of exciting behind-the-scenes stuff going on with

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

I’m still asking myself this. In terms of writing, editing and publishing, this was easily my biggest year since 2009 (when I was up for the Nebula for “The Button Bin” and had released the 10th anniversary issue of Mythic Delirium and the second volume

My “Tour of the Abattoir” audio column for Larry Santoro’s Tales to Terrify horror podcast skipped the month of September so that I could finish novel edits for The Black Fire Concerto, coming very soon as an e-book from the fine madmen at Black Gate.

The guys behind Black Gate have announced that they’ve started publishing fiction on their website, which is great news for those who love fantasy short fiction in general, and also great news for me, as they’ll soon be publishing the standalone novelette that opens my

UPDATE 10/17: Claire Cooney’s response to this meme can be found here, and there’s a roundup by Rose Lemberg of several more here. UPDATE 10/11: Juliette Wade’s response to this meme can be found here. UPDATE 10/10: Nicole Kornher-Stace’s response to this meme can be