DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

So last night and this morning I got the go-ahead to share two very exciting bits of news that came to fruition in the month following the Clockwork Phoenix 4 Kickstarter. First, I’m pleased to announce the sale of my novel, tentatively titled The Black

† 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

I’m pleased to report that my truly strange short story “Monster” that combines serial killers and fractals has sold to the new horror journal [Nameless] Magazine, and is currently scheduled for a Spring 2013 release. I’ve got a number of other behind-the-scenes things going on

Reposted from the latest project update. WE DID IT! CLOCKWORK PHOENIX WILL PAY PRO RATES. AND NOW OUR NEXT GOAL: A NEW WEBZINE FOR POETRY AND FICTION. TARGET: $10,000. Thank you all so much! We’re overwhelmed. The next volume of Clockwork Phoenix will pay 5

Today the Clockwork Phoenix 4 Kickstarter reached the halfway point, with 15 days done and 15 days to go. I’m amazed at the progress we’ve made, but we’re still chasing that elusive $8,000 goal so that for the first time the series can pay pro

If anyone had told me that I would wake up on the twelfth day of our Kickstarter campaign and discover that WE ARE ALREADY FULLY FUNDED I am not sure what I would have said to them. But I can tell you what I have

In which I discuss horror stories that have unnerved me over the years, share a very short story of my own, “Six Waking Nightmares that Poe Gave Me in Third Grade,” and review Chesya Burke’s short story collection Let’s Play White. There’s also a short

As long promised: with a lovely illustration by Avery Liell-Kok and a gracious introduction by Shira Lipkin. “Mike Allen’s ‘Sleepless, Burning Life‘ is a very Moorcockian trip through cosmic clockwork, in search of ‘the dark-eyed dancer who made the cosmos turn.’ The worldbuilding is beautiful,

Update: There’s a Goodreads giveaway of Ocean Stories open for entries through June 25. Continuing the curious wave of reprints I’ve had this year, my short story “Strange Wisdoms of the Dead,” co-written with Charles M. Saplak, has just (re)appeared in the anthology Ocean Stories,

“Mike Allen’s ‘She Who Runs’ gives flesh to spells moving faster than time.” — Publishers Weekly No girl had ever lived so long wearing the curse of She Who Runs. Lassamtu was not her name, but the name forced on her by the high priest