DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

A nice surprise at the end of an arduous if triumphant May: my Shirley Jackson Award-nominated horror story collection Unseaming earned some kind words in the latest issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction from reviewer Paul di Filippo:   “Representing sixteen years of prose output from

So this was always the plan—   Well, the idea that my short story collection Unseaming would be one of the rewards in a Kickstarter campaign for Clockwork Phoenix 5, that has been my plan for quite some time. Most every publishing project I tackled

So, at the end of 2010, I thought my days of writing poetry were behind me. I had gone from someone excited about speculative poetry, who advocated for it anywhere the opportunity arose, to someone so burned out and dejected by the state of the

So I’ve written a new Lovecraftian tale, my first explicit stab at the Mythos since “Her Acres of Pastoral Playground” appeared in Cthulhu’s Reign in 2010.   My new story is called “The Sun Saw,” and I’m proud to share that it will be appearing

Ha! I’m been so busy doing things I’ve fallen behind on the blogistic duty of explaining what I’ve been up to. Well, this is a good way to return to form.   My Unseaming “book tour” is over, or has at least landed in a

Ticks are never easy to spot. An intelligent species of them would be especially evasive, n’est-ce pas?   Folks familiar with my work might find my short story “Tick Flick” an unusually sweet and sentimental depiction of friendship, except that the friends so depicted happen

Fans of weird fiction have been very good to my debut collection, Unseaming — it’s easily the fastest-selling title I’ve ever produced in my 20 years of doing this kind of thing. (And though out-selling my previous titles leaps a pretty low bar, had you

So I waited until all the pieces were in place before formally announcing this one, though I’ve been plugging it on Twitter for a lil’ while now. Behold The Sky-Riders, a new novelette that’s quite a departure for me, available in numerous online places in

Though it’s possible I still looked productive to most everyone else, I went through a long spell in 2013 and the first half of 2014 where I wasn’t selling any new work. (These things happen to writers, heh. Perhaps worth noting, if you don’t believe

UPDATE: And the winner is … Shawna Lenore Kastin. Thanks to all who participated! So, first, the giveaway rules: If you want to enter this giveaway for C.S.E. Cooney’s beautiful debut fantasy collection Bone Swans (introduction by Gene Wolfe, coming in July from Mythic Delirium