DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

Tonight I’m going to read three brief short stories as part of a Studio Roanoke event called “The Big Idea.” I adore how they’ve billed me: Featuring Death Newman, Chris Shepard, Illusions by Nelson Oliver, and creepiness from Mike Allen! Sat. Oct. 29th, 8PM, $5.00

As well as some delightfully pulpy artwork. Cthulhu fhtagn! The podcast also contains an interview with me afterward, full of awkward pauses, strange skips, and giggle fits. I reveal, among other things, that the inspiration for “Her Acres of Pastoral Playground” owes more to John

I learned something today that leaves me especially tickled. As a part of the “Mike Allen feature” in issue 4 of Fantastique Unfettered, the zine is reprinting my science fiction novelette “Stolen Souls.” Whatever flaws it may have, this piece holds a lot of sentimental

Google shows me this blog review of my short story “An Invitation via Email,” which appeared in the July/Aug. 2008 issue of Weird Tales (#350), edited by Ann VanderMeer. I think the review is longer than the story! Again, I include it for grins. …

Twitter revealed to me David Hebblethwaite’s review of Apex Magazine 23, which contains a passage about my “Button Bin”: The first of the issue’s two reprints, Mike Allen’s “The Button Bin” (reproduced from a 2007 issue of Helix), is disquieting in both its style and content. Searching

T.J. McIntyre’s Southern Fried Weirdness: Reconstruction — all proceeds from which go to the Red Cross to help with tornado relief in the South — is out now on Smashwords and Amazon Kindle, with stories and poems from a cutting edge and up-and-coming roster including

Sam Tomaino at SF Revu tackles the stories in Apex Magazine 23 and makes mention of my “Button Bin“: “The Button Bin” by Mike Allen (originally appeared in Helix: Speculative Fiction Quarterly, 2007) is quite the horror story. Our narrator is after a man named

When I saw that T.J. McIntyre decided to resurrect his zine Southern Fried Weirdness as a Kindle anthology with all proceeds to go to tornado relief, I realized I might have something that would fit in with that project right well. And as it turns

My short story “The Button Bin” is now available online in its entirety at Apex Magazine.