DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

I have been through many a cringe-inducing conversation in my life wherein someone identifies themselves to me as a fellow published poet, and then reveals that they were published by the National Library of Poetry, one of the most infamous scams in recent publishing history.

“Kandinsky’s Galaxy,” the latest and for now last of the poems in my Disturbing Muses series, has just appeared in the new issue of Strange Horizons. You can read it here. I owe Strange Horizons Poetry Editor Sonya Taaffe for the existence of both this

As I continue to work on my Secret Second Novel, a number of cool things sort of accumulated all at once. I shall enumerate them here. I have a new poem, “Surcease,” out in Issue 3 of the recently-revived Inkscrawl, edited by Samantha Henderson, published

Some nice recognitions for my poetry over the past few days. First, the poem that I co-wrote with Sonya Taaffe and Nicole Kornher-Stace, “The King of Cats, the Queen of Wolves,” selected by Catherynne M. Valente for publication in Apex Magazine last year, has been

My new poem “Carrington’s Ferry” has just appeared in Strange Horizons, a piece inspired by the life and works of Leonora Carrington. It’s the first installment in my “Disturbing Muses” cycle of poems since “Mondrian’s War” in 2008 (which, interestingly enough, also appeared in Strange

I’m still pretty giddy from the news that I’ve sold my first short story collection, but I had another sale earlier this week. New Star*Line editor F.J. Bergmann has accepted my poem “The Duelists” for her fall issue. Woo-hoo!

Earlier this week I was contacted out of the blue by Denmark denizen Knud Larn, the editor of an old school sf fanzine called Fandom Forever, distributed by the Fantasy Amateur Press Association. “There is too little poetry in fanzines nowadays,” he said, made a

I already did a long blog post in which I talked about the contents of Fantastique Unfettered 4 in some depth, so I’ll stick to the most important information (from my perspective): First, it’s out! You can find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and

Received word this morning from Laird Barron that he’s buying my poem “Budding” for the next issue of Phantasmagorium. Woo-hoo! (“Budding” was inspired by a conversation with Nicole Kornher-Stace about child-rearing, something I have no first-hand experience with.)