DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

My tongue-in-cheek anti-Persephone-poem poem “Machine Guns Loaded with Pomegranate Seeds” appeared today at Strange Horizons. My thanks to Sonya Taaffe for giving this piece a home. My thanks also to Amal El-Mohtar for this delightful Twitter review: Only @mythicdelirium could make me burst out laughing

The latest Tales to Terrify podcast contains my newest “Tour of the Abattoir” column, in which I review stories from the first two issue of John Joseph Adams’ new publishing venture Nightmare Magazine, by Jonathan Maberry, Genevieve Valentine, Sarah Langan and Desirina Boskovich.  

I’m pleased to announce the poems that will be appearing in Mythic Delirium 28, scheduled to be published in Spring 2013. It’s a pretty eclectic mix, though road trips figure prominently. Día de los Muertos • F.J. Bergmann The Beast • Rachel Manija Brown Mice

My poem “The Vigil,” dedicated to Nicole Kornher-Stace — and also one of my “Claire-dare” series of poems from late 2010 — has just appeared in the newest issue of Goblin Fruit. Making this appearance extra special, the audio reading is by Claire Suzanne Elizabeth

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.

Congratulations to poet Sofía Rhei (and translator Lawrence Schimel) whose poem “The Magic Walnut” from Mythic Delirium 25 is a contender for the 2012 Dwarf Stars Awards. (I’ve mentioned earlier that my own poem co-written with Anita, “Unland, Unlife,” is also in the running, along

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

Monday, I mentioned selling my new short story “Still Life With Skull” to Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction. What I didn’t mention was the minor miracle involved in finishing it and the people I need to thank. See, as it

At last it can be told (as the contract has been received and replied to): my science fiction short story “Still Life With Skull” has sold to editor Ian Whates for inclusion in Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, which is

Tonight I’ll be performing my poem “The Strip Search” at The Best of  the Best of No Shame Theatre, 8 p.m. at Mill Mountain Theatre’s Waldron Stage on Church Avenue in downtown Roanoke. The show is close to sold out already, but I believe there