DESCENT INTO LIGHT: Mike Allen’s Home Page

Posted in Mythic Delirium

The latest podcast from Hugo Award-winning StarShipSofa features the second installment of Diane Severson’s Poetry Planet, which, in the name of exploring the theme of “first contact,” contains two of my poems, “The Thing in the Gutter” and “On Discovery of a Habitable World.” The second of these is actually the first sf poem I ever tried my hand at.

I’m pleased to note that the podcast also contains Ann K. Schwader’s “The Ones Who Met Them,” which I’m proud to have published in Issue 21 of Mythic Delirium, also known as “The Trickster Issue.”

Posted in Mythic Delirium, Poetry, Signal boosts

I’m pleased to announce that the following poems by the following poets have been accepted for Issue 25 of Mythic Delirium, which I hope to have out in early October.

• “An Unkindness of Ravens” • Rachel Manija Brown
• “Claiming Tyche; Nemesis Rising” • Michael Fosburg
• “Venus Crossing the Sun” • Melissa Frederick
• “Little Girls, Atom Bombs” • Jeannine Hall Gailey
• “Trans-Neptunian Shores” • Wade German
• “Babel Before Babel” • Howard V. Hendrix
• “The tenured faculty meets to discuss the Moon’s campus visit” • Rose Lemberg
• “Elegy for Robert Sheckley” • Florence Major
• “Joseph Carey Merrick” • Florence Major
• “Raven Singing” • Mari Ness
• “Silence” • Mari Ness
• “The Magic Walnut” • Sofía Rhei • Translation by Lawrence Schimel
• “Space Dogs” • Ann K. Schwader
• “Alien Graffiti” • Darrell Schweitzer
• “Cloth Demon” • Alexandra Seidel
• “Yurei” • Susan Slaviero
• “The Description of a Wish” • Sonya Taaffe
• “Moon Girl, Earth Guy” • Mary A. Turzillo
• “The Melancholy of Mechagirl” • Catherynne M. Valente
• “Nobody’s Song” • Jessica Paige Wick

Congratulations, all!

Further updating: Issue 24 is now collated and will go to the printer for binding on Monday.

And, again, if you sent me something for Issue 25 and you haven’t heard back from me yet, you need to query me. Like really, really, really soon…

Tags: contents, Mythic Delirium 25
Posted in Editing, Mythic Delirium

If you sent me any poems to be considered for Issue 25 of Mythic Delirium and you haven’t received a response, you need to query. To my knowledge, at this moment, I have given everyone an answer.

My hope is to see Issue 25 on its way to people’s mailboxes in early October.

Now, to get Issue 24 finished….

Posted in Mythic Delirium

Last week Tor Books released Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, edited by Kevin J. Anderson. Its publication marks a nice milestone for me as an editor that I feel the need to make a little note of.

The book reprints Saladin Ahmed’s “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela,” a 2009 Nebula finalist for Best Short Story that I first published in Clockwork Phoenix 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness, and Amal El-Mohtar’s “Song for an Ancient City,” the 2009 Rhysling Award winner for short poem, which I published in Mythic Delirium 19. In other words, an editorial double whammy.

Mind you, Saladin and Amal are both intimidatingly good writers, and I think these pieces would have done well wherever they wound up. But I’m proud that I got to showcase them first.

Posted in Editing, Signal boosts

My poem “Splendours to Devour” has just appeared in the June issue of Ideomancer. It’s a rather quirky end-of-the-world poem, inspired in part by a conversation with my pal Nicole Kornher-Stace. If you like it, I hope you’ll leave a comment there.

Posted in Poetry, Signal boosts

Last week I mentioned a poetry sale to a market so new it didn’t yet have an URL. Well, inkscrawl now has a URL, http://www.inkscrawl.net/, where submission guidelines can be found. Go check them out.

Posted in Poetry, Signal boosts

My brain is scrambled by the opposing forces of a virus invasion and the drugs that fight them, but I’m just coherent enough to make mention that I’ve sold another of the “Claire-dare” poems, “Heart’s Delight,” to Not One of Us. This poem in particular was prompted by Nicole Kornher-Stace, who offered me this delightful image to work with:

Posted in Poetry, Signal boosts, Writing

Presenting, at last, the cover art for Mythic Delirium 24:

So, obviously, the issue itself won’t be reaching folks until June. We apologize sincerely for the delay.

I can however offer some proof that the issue is worth the wait. Alexa Seidel has written a review that’s now up at the Fantastique Unfettered website:

“[A] venture into lightheartedness” is what editor Mike Allen calls this latest issue of Mythic Delirium. The poetry assembled here certainly makes for an excellent adventure, and lightheartedness often plays a part, but even so, all these lyrical quests have a weighty center.

Congrats to contributors Elissa Malcohn, Ian Watson, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Lucien E.G. Spelman, Serena Fusek and Shira Lipkin, whose poems receive special mention.

Posted in Mythic Delirium, Reviews

Just a quick note that next edition of “Poetry Planet” at StarShipSofa will, as I understand, contain two poems by me, that you could call Golden Oldies: “On Discovery of a Habitable World” (which is, actually, the first sf poem I ever wrote, though it evolved a bit after that first draft over 20 years ago) and “The Thing in the Gutter.” Both poems are “first contact” poems — or rather, my odd takes on the concept.

Posted in Poetry, Signal boosts