DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

Monday brings me two new precious things. First, my new poem “La Donna del Lago,” dedicated to Claire (C.S.E.) Cooney, has appeared at Strange Horizons. Fitting, as it’s the last of the “Claire-dare” poems that she inspired (though not the last to appear in print.)

A new website, Versification, chartered by Erzebet YellowBoy Carr, posts reviews of speculative poetry. The site debuted this week, and three of its reviews, all reprints, concern me: there’s Amal El-Mohtar’s review of my last collection, The Journey to Kailash; Deborah J. Brannon’s review of

Bull Spec poetry editor Dan Campbell offers a review of the poems in the upcoming Fantastique Unfettered 3, and makes mention of the interview with me that’s appearing there. …do read it for a hint of how Allen performs his poems and an insight into

Progress on the rewrite of my novel (revised and expanded from my short story “The Hiker’s Tale”) continues apace; ordinarily I would post something like this on my LiveJournal but that forum continues not to function, so, I share here. Today I actually reached the

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

Tomorrow night, I will be performing in “Overnight Sensations” at Mill Mountain Theatre (see poster to the left) — six plays get created in 24 hours, starting tonight. I’ll be one of the actors. (And I’m going to write about it afterward, so there’s a

Congratulations to the following writers from Clockwork Phoenix 3: New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness who have received honorable mentions from Gardner Dozois in the newest edition of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. “Braiding the Ghosts,” C.S.E. Cooney “Hell Friend,” Gemma Files “Lucyna’s Gaze,” Gregory

Yesterday Alexa Seidel with Fantastique Unfettered informed me she’ll be adding my poem “Seed the Earth, Burn the Sky” to the pair (“Sisyphus Crawls,” “Binary”) she already has lined up for the Nov./Dec. issue, making it a triptych. I also understand the issue’s cover will

Today, I got the bulk of my schedule for ReaderCon. Updated and complete on 6/27 and confirmed as complete schedule on 7/2: Thursday July 14 9:00 PM RI    Speculative Poetry Workshop. Mike Allen. This is a basic workshop that challenges participants to write and share

After a week full of rejections for both new poems and new stories — so it goes — I finished up with a nice poetry sale, to Strange Horizons. The poem is called “La Donna del Lago,” and it’s dedicated to Claire Cooney. It was