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

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

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

Art by Avery Liell-Kok Art by Luis Beltrán

Rich Horton reviewed two of my short stories in the June 2012 issue of Locus, and put one of them, “Twa Sisters,” on the magazine’s monthly Recommended Reading List. That’s the first time that’s happened to me, so needless to say I’m thrilled. Here’s what

This handsome new hardcover short story collection from British puckster (prank-star?) Ian Watson…. …contains the wacky novelette that he and I co-wrote, “Dee-Dee and the Dumpy Dancers,” accurately described by The Guardian as a “bizarre vision … featuring aerial ballet and alien turkeys.”

My new short story at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, “The Ivy-Smothered Palisade,” has garnered a couple of reviews I’m pleased to share. First a review from Tangent Online by Chuck Rothman. He writes: “The Ivy-Smothered Palisade” takes the form of a letter from Daeliya, a woman