DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

Sometimes the writing life smiles on you. Much of the time it doesn’t, but sometimes it really does. Two weekends ago I was stabbing at a creepy-crawly, half-finished horror story called “Tardigrade,” unsure what direction I wanted to take it, hoping I could figure it out before end of summer. Then came a surprise anthology invitation, a deadline of a week, a race to the finish, a last minute plea for beta reader feedback.
 
Monday, Jason V. Brock of [NaMel3ss] Magazine informed me he would buy “Tardigrade” for his mammoth anthology A Darke Phantastique, a gathering of horror filtered through magical realism with a forward by the late Ray Bradbury and already-accepted stories by Joe Landsdale, Steve Rasnic Tem, Nancy Kilpatrick, Greg Bear, Dennis Etchison, Melanie Tem, William F. Nolan and tons more.
 

 
My thanks to Ken Schneyer, Jennifer Crow, Virginia Mohlere, Shveta Thakrar, Francesca Forrest, Mari Ness, and Anita (of course) for helping me navigate that 0-to-60 writing challenge.
 
Fortuitously, the same day Jason told me he would buy “Tardigrade,” I received an email from Shawn Garrett of audio magazine Pseudopod accepting my weird horror story “Monster” for adaptation to podcast. In one of those funny coincidences, Jason was the original publisher of “Monster” — it appeared in [NaMel3ss] 3 this spring.
 
The stories have in common vaguely scientific notions stretched by something akin to dream logic until they’re weeeeell into the realms of the bizarrely sinister.
 
For the record, “Monster” is now the final story in my forthcoming collection of horror tales, Unseaming. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s an advance reader copy giveaway going on at Goodreads through July 31. I hope you’ll check it out.
 
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Posted in Audio, Fiction, Short stories, Unseaming, Writing

Antimatter Press is giving away 20 ARCs of my debut horror collection Unseaming. For details, click the widget!

Posted in Fiction, Short stories, Unseaming, Writing

This latest episode of Tales to Terrify concludes an epic four-part serial of William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland … and it also contains my latest “Tour of the Abattoir” audio column, in which, at the suggestion of Dominik Parisien, I talk about two weird collections: Karin Tidbeck’s Jagannath and Helen Marshall’s Hair Side, Flesh Side. I had mixed reactions to both books, but found individual stories that I enjoyed muchly. You’ll also hear me wrestle with the notion that, while both books partake of horror tropes, I don’t consider either to be “horror.” Give it a listen here, and share what you think, whether you agree or don’t. Especially if you don’t!
 
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Posted in Audio, Short stories, Tour of the Abattoir

Jaime Lee Moyer (whose latest novel, A Barricade in Hell, just hit the stands) interviewed me for the Online Writing Workshop newsletter. I talk about why the standard approaches to putting together anthologies won’t work for Clockwork Phoenix, among other things. You can read the interview here (you’ll spot me mugging for the camera as you scroll down).
 
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Posted in Appearances, Clockwork Phoenix, Interviews

Recently I was recruited for back-to-back “MindMelds” at SF Signal, in which assorted panelists of authors are asked to riff on sometimes esoteric topics.
 
In the first, “Our Favorite Food and Drink From Scifi and Fantasy!” I talk about the cooking and eating of ghoul flesh that occurs in my novel The Black Fire Concerto, because of course I would. In all fairness, Andrea Johnson, who organized this one, has read the novel. She had to know what I was going to contribute.
 
In the second, “When Genre Intersects Classical Literature and Myth,” I think my basic answer was, “When doesn’t it?” Heh. The hardest part was figuring out which examples of myth-mixing to limit myself to — there are soooooo many.
 
I’m honored to have been tapped, I’m in pretty classy company in both roundtables.
 
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Posted in Appearances, Clockwork Phoenix, Interviews, The Black Fire Concerto

I’m thrilled to announce that my first short story collection, Unseaming, will be coming out in October from Antimatter Press, in time for the World Fantasy Convention in Washington, D.C.
 
This is a project that’s been in the works for at least three years, and is now with its third publisher. It looks like third time is the charm, though, as evidenced by the shiny proof that’s sitting on my home office desk. My thanks to Elizabeth Campbell and Jonas Knight of Antimatter for making this possible, and to Danielle Tunstall for that amazing cover image.
 
On its journey so far the book, which is a collection of fourteen horror stories, picked up a gracious introduction from horrormeister Laird Barron and approving blurbs from Gemma Files, John Langan and Thomas Ligotti (see below). Antimatter will have advance reviewer copies available before the end of this month (and by the way, if you’re interested in an ARC, ping me and I’ll see about hooking you up.)
 
Before I share what they said, here’s what’s actually in the book:
 

• “Introduction: A Stitch in Darkness” by Laird Barron
• “The Button Bin” (Helix: Speculative Fiction Quarterly, 2007; 2008 Nebula Award Finalist for Best Short Story)
• “The Blessed Days” (Tales of the Talisman, 2009)
• “Humpty” (Flesh & Blood, 2002)
• “Her Acres of Pastoral Playground” (Cthulhu’s Reign, 2010)
• “An Invitation via E-mail” (Weird Tales, 2008)
• “The Hiker’s Tale” (Cabinet des Fées, 2007)
• “The Music of Bremen Farm” (Cabinet des Fées, 2006)
• “The Lead Between the Panes” (Lakeside Circus, 2014)
• “Stone Flowers” (Scheherezade’s Bequest, 2009)
• “Gutter” (original)
• “Condolences” (original)
• “Let There Be Darkness” (Penny Dreadful, 1998)
• “The Quiltmaker” (original novella; the sequel to “The Button Bin”)
• “Monster” (Nameless, 2014)

 
And now, what my colleagues and heroes have said (short version, Laird compares me to Clive Barker, Thomas Freakin’ Ligotti says my book is fun (!)):

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Posted in Fiction, Short stories, Unseaming, Writing

A big announcement coming (though you might be able to guess what it is) … but first, catching up on some print publications that have arrived chez moi.

* * *

…and even more so by Tricia Scott’s beautiful painting paired with “A Curtain of Stars.”

Posted in Fiction, Poetry, Short stories, Writing

Because of a multitude of projects and developments, some of which have been documented over at the Mythic Delirium Books site, I’ve been remiss in posting new updates here. (Part of the reason is that I’m planning a major revamp of this site, so that you can actually tell at a glance that I produce books — but the time window to do that is always just around the corner, heh.)
 
Anyway, I first want to get caught up with “Tour of the Abattoir” at Tales to Terrify.
 
Last Friday, Larry Santoro, chief torturer in the TtT catacombs, let me get away with passing off one of my short stories as a column: my newest “Tour of the Abattoir” is actually my reading of my 2,000-word rendition of world-swallowing apocalypse, “Let There Be Darkess.” (Click here to listen.)
 
It’s meant to serve a preview of my forthcoming horror story collection, Unseaming, due to arrive in time for this year’s World Fantasy Convention after a couple of false starts with a couple of previous publishers. You can bet you’ll be hearing more about this from me as the months progress.
 
I missed blogging here about my previous “Tour,” in which, inspired by the fact that Robert Aickman’s work will be one of the themes of World Fantasy in November, I took an in-depth look at three collections of his that are available in ebook format. (Click here to hear it.)
 
In between, there’s been a lot of cool stuff going on: for three episodes in a row, Larry gathered together audio adaptations of a number of the Bram Stoker Award nominees. And coming up, Tales to Terrify is tackling something enormous — an adaptation of William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderlands. Download it to your iPods and check it out.
 
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Posted in Audio, Fiction, Short stories, Tour of the Abattoir

A couple of bits of news from opposite ends of the literary spectrum this week.
 
My poem “A Curtain of Stars” is being reprinted in Artemis Journal, a beautiful Southwest Virginia literary magazine that’s being revived after more than a decade of dormancy. Like many of my poems, “Curtain of Stars” is actually quite literal — it was inspired by the starchart-covered curtains Anita sewed for my office.
 
It’s one of the most wholesome poems I’ve written, and it’s one of those pieces that’s become something akin to an old friend. The only mainstream poetry review I’ve ever gotten reflected on it kindly, I’ve performed a version of it for The Best of No Shame Theatre here in Roanoke, and I included it in two of my poetry collections, Strange Wisdoms of the Dead and The Journey to Kailash (though it won’t be in the forthcoming Hungry Constellations.)
 
I’m tickled that this poem will reach a new audience inside a book of coffee table quality, and I’m especially thrilled to be sharing space with Nikki Giovanni — the issue’s featured poet.
 
On the dark side of the world, the third issue of weird horror zine [Nameless] has just been released, and it contains my short, extremely strange horror monologue “Monster,” perhaps one of the least wholesome things I’ve ever written. The story’s title refers to the phenomenon once known as mathematical “monsters”: curves of infinite length that exist within a finite space. We know them now as fractals, and they come into play in the course of a police interrogation gone horribly wrong. I’m grateful (and I confess somewhat astonished) that I actually found a pro-rate paying home for this hybrid monstrosity.
 
This monster isn’t done — at present Anita and I have planned for this piece to be the closer in my forthcoming short story collection Unseaming, which I’ll be hawking at World Fantasy in November. Brace yourself, as you’ll be hearing a lot more about that down the road. But I’m not quite ready to go into detail yet….
 
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Posted in Fiction, Poetry, Short stories, Writing

This is actually old news, but it’s taken me quite a while to get around to making a note of it, so please forgive. The Ian Whates-edited anthology Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, which contains my far future sf story “Still Life With Skull,” is one of seven finalists for the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award “for distinguished science fiction published in paperback.”
 
Though I’ll confess that I’ve lapsed into dirty-minded juvenile puns every time I’ve mentioned this award in conversation … it’s still an honor to be nominated (or to be 1/20th of a nominee, as Martin McGrath cleverly put it.) Wishing Ian all the luck when the winner is announced April 18.
 
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Posted in Awards, Fiction, Short stories, Writing