DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

Don’t worry — when it returns it will be better than ever. #SFWApro

Posted in Editing, Mythic Delirium, Signal boosts

Cross-posted from Mythic Delirium Kickstarter update #11:

Unsurprisingly, it took no time at all to find someone interested in seeing me get blowed up real good. Enjoy, folks!

#SFWApro

Posted in Kickstarter, Mythic Delirium, Signal boosts, Strangeness

Cross-posted from Mythic Delirium Kickstarter update #9:

Hi, folks! Anita and I are back from ReaderCon in Boston and have recovered enough from a productive and exhausting trip to pick the Kickstarter ball back up again. I’m grateful to all of you folks who’ve backed us so far for your faith and your patience, and I’m amazed and delighted at how this Kickstarter continued to grow during the time we couldn’t devote our full attention to it. We don’t have long at all to go to reach our $3,250 stretch goal, but we do have only six days left to do it in.

As an added incentive, when this Kickstarter passes $3,000, I’ll post an amusing video made during our room party Saturday night. It’s PG, I promise.

While we were at ReaderCon, Anita finished making the special jewelry pins that we’ve offering at the $75 reward level. Here’s a gander at them that I took with my iPhone in our hotel room. No two are alike, though all contain the “message tube” holding the cover of Mythic Delirium 0.1.

Consistently throughout this Kickstarter, I’ve been asked about add-on rewards. This possibility never came up for discussion during our previous campaign to raise the funds to publish the Clockwork Phoenix 4 anthology. Because of this, I didn’t build them into the Mythic Delirium Kickstarter reward system from the start, and I also didn’t know I could adjust the limited reward totals if those rewards were claimed as add-ons. Now I know I can do that.

So here is a simple add-on system that I think is fair to those who have already pledged and might want to add something more. First, to obtain an add-on you must pledge at the $25 reward level at minimum.

You may then increase your pledge by the following amounts to obtain these reward items:

• $5 (outside U.S. $8): your choice of a print back issue of Mythic Delirium (36 left)
• $5: E-book copy of my forthcoming Hungry Constellations poetry collection
• $10 (Outside U.S. $15): subscription to the last two remaining print issues of Mythic Delirium
• $20 (Outside U.S. $30): special edition signed “Triptych” art print by Paula Friedlander (9 left)
• $25: poem critique by myself and Anita (8 left)
• $25 (Outside U.S. $30): signed limited edition of The Immigrant by Cherie Priest (2 left)
• $50 (Outside U.S. $60): Mythic Delirium jewelry pin by Anita (18 left)
• $75: story critique by myself and Anita (2 left)

If you decide to take advantage of these offers, you must message me through Kickstarter or email me at mythicdelirium@gmail.com to tell me what you’re pledging for so I can keep track of how many are left.

There is are also a special add-on that we have been offering through the backers-only updates — but obviously, you have to become a backer to see what it is. #SFWApro

Again, folks, thank you so much for all the support you’ve given us. Not long now!

Posted in Editing, Kickstarter, Mythic Delirium, Signal boosts

Last year, on the Monday before ReaderCon, I launched a Kickstarter to revive the Clockwork Phoenix anthology series. It went better than I ever could have dreamed.

Today — on the Monday before ReaderCon — the Kickstarter to revitalize my other longtime publishing project, Mythic Delirium, has reached its funding goal. We’ll be able to keep publishing the new web and e-book version of the magazine at least through mid-2016. It’s like an anniversary gift!

This community is an incredibly generous, giving group to be part of. Thank you all.

Of course I have stretch goals, heh. For $750 more — $3,250 total — I’ll be able to publish a print anthology gathering the stories and poems in the first four issues of the new zine. Fortunately, perhaps, for those who’d like a break from my constant sales pitch, I’m not prepared to outline this second phase in full, as I have to finish prepping for our trip to Boston. #SFWApro

So instead I just want to point out that we have plenty of cool swag left that’s ripe for claiming. We have available:

Ten special color art prints from Paula Friedlander

Four copies left of the signed and numbered chapbook edition of The Immigrant by Cherie Priest

18 unclaimed jewelry pins that Anita is in the process of making — and will likely finish at ReaderCon

Two story critiques from myself and Anita

And lots of other stuff. I hope you’ll give it all a look.

Posted in Clockwork Phoenix, Editing, Kickstarter, Mythic Delirium

So a year ago today, more or less, I launched my first Kickstarter, to make Clockwork Phoenix 4. And thanks to amazing support from this community, that ended up going really, really well.

Today, my second and much smaller Kickstarter is less than $300 away from being fully funded. If we reach full funding early I have a couple of fairly simple stretch goals. An additional $750 will cover the cost of a print anthology collecting Mythic Delirium 0.1 through 0.4, and if we get that far, another $750 would cover an anthology of the next year’s issues, putting us at a total of $4,000. #SFWApro

Anita’s been working on a special set of Mythic Delirium pins just for this Kickstarter (only one of the 20 has been claimed so far,) and I can finally give you a sense what they will look like. They’re not finished yet, but if you catch us at ReaderCon this weekend, you’ll likely get to watch her putting them together.

Posted in Clockwork Phoenix, Editing, Mythic Delirium, Reviews, Strangeness

I’m pleased to announce that the following poems have been accepted for Mythic Delirium 29, the penultimate print issue of our zine, due out around October. (And of course, I’m revamping Mythic Delirium as an electronic publication, the very first issue of which is available now through our very nearly fully funded Kickstarter.) #SFWAPro

Here are the poets poems that will appear in Mythic Delirium 29:

Constance Cooper, “Great-Great-Grandmother’s Recipe Box”

Lara Elena Donnelly, “Apocalypse Walking”

Preston Grassman, “The Edge of Visible Light”

Ada Hoffman, “The Siren of Mayberry Crescent,” “The Tooth Fairy Throws In the Towel” and “The Witch’s Courting Song”

Deborah P Kolodji, “Echoes of Futures” and “Seasons of a Time Traveler”

Jenna Le, “Tainted Wedding: A Palindromic Fairy Tale in Four Parts”

Sandi Leibowitz, “The Raven’s Invitation”

Kurt Newton, “The Stranger”

Laura Praytor, “Alternatives”

Alexandra Seidel, “The Ice Thief”

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, “Strange Monster”

Sonya Taaffe, “Hypnos and Thanatos”

Posted in Editing, Mythic Delirium, Poetry, Signal boosts

Anita’s been making dolls of the characters from my first novel, THE BLACK FIRE CONCERTO. These dolls are still in progress, but I can sure tell who they are. From left to right: a Grey One from the temple above Violet Bluff, my novel with its mystery sorceress on the cover, and my heroines, Erzelle and Olyssa. #SFWApro

Updated to add: Here’s Olyssa and Erzelle braving the wild territory atop the mantelpiece.

Posted in Fiction, Novels, Signal boosts, Strangeness, The Black Fire Concerto, Writing

So it’s not quite two weeks yet, and the Kickstarter for the new version of Mythic Delirium has only $500 more to raise to reach fully funded. And we haven’t even posted any images of the new jewelry pins Anita is making! (With any luck, we’ll be able to do that tomorrow…)

Mind you, I know $500 isn’t chump change. Still, this is pretty amazing, especially since my zine focuses so heavily on poetry. Thanks so much to all of you who’ve supported us so far!

Yesterday and this morning I started thinking hard about stretch goals. (Gee, I wonder why 😀 )

I promised Anita when I started working on this newfangled Mythic Delirium that we wouldn’t completely abandon print. Right now I have built into the new Mythic Delirium contracts terms for rounding up each year’s worth of issues into an annual trade paperback anthology, not unlike what many of the other online zines do, but it’s optional, not definite. If we reach full funding soon enough, I think I’ll change focus to making those books a certainty. It shouldn’t take much compared to what we’ve already raised. #SFWApro

Posted in Editing, Kickstarter, Mythic Delirium, Signal boosts

You can’t buy it yet, but you can “look inside,” and you can sign up for an e-mail telling you when you can purchase it.

#SFWAPro

Posted in Fiction, Novels, The Black Fire Concerto, Writing

This review of Clockwork Phoenix 4 at Strange Horizons pulls no punches.

But here’s how it ends:

… this anthology, and this anthology series, are serious about working on the edge of commercially viable fiction. There is room here for the confusing, intentionally or otherwise; for the unexplained; for the extremely different. When it pays off, it pays off spectacularly. The first three Clockwork Phoenix anthologies were published by Norilana Books, but this one was funded by a Kickstarter campaign run by Allen after Norilana ran into financial difficulties. It’s good to see that a community can come together and support an original endeavor of this kind, and delightful to see how well the results have turned out. Whether Allen continues this particular anthology series or not, this book is in several distinct ways a look into the future: the future of fantasy and science fiction, diverse, strange, and wonderful; the future of these individual writers, many of whom are at or near the beginning of careers which promise to be interesting; and, additionally, the future of publishing, in which a crowd-sourced publication from a very small press can produce, and can present professionally and beautifully, work which is at the height of what is being written in genre. This particular phoenix has risen from its ashes triumphant.

#SFWAPro

Posted in Clockwork Phoenix, Editing, Kickstarter, Reviews