As of this evening the official release of Clockwork Phoenix 5 is less than two weeks away.   In collaboration with Jim Freund, the man behind New York’s long-running Hour of the Wolf radio program, we’re going to be holding a launch party for the book in Brooklyn, N.Y., as part of the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings.   Clockwork Phoenix 5 contributors Rob Cameron, C.S.E. Cooney, Carlos Hernandez, Barbara Krasnoff, Sonya Taaffe, Shveta Thakrar and A.C. Wise

For reasons good and bad, I’m awfully behind in promoting my latest writing and publishing hijinx. So, belatedly but enthusiastically, more than three weeks after the fact, I’m thrilled to announce that my second short story collection, the ultra-ultraweird The Spider Tapestries: Seven Strange Stories, is loose in the world!   I had been planning on Book Day to share the full text of the wonderful blurb that World Fantasy Award winner Scott Nicolay wrote for The Spider Tapestries—except I

The first review of Clockwork Phoenix 5 has appeared, and we’re proud to report that it’s a coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly! We could not have hoped for better.   Allen’s strange and lovely fifth genre-melding fantasy anthology selects 20 new short stories of unusual variety, texture, compassion, and perception. . . . The common denominator seems to be love in many unusual incarnations: two fathers’ devotion to their lost children in Barbara Krasnoff’s ghost story “Sabbath Wine,” a

We at Mythic Delirium Books want to offer a huge, heartfelt congratulations to C.S.E. Cooney, whose story “The Bone Swans of Amandale” from her collection Bone Swans is now a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novella!   You can read Claire’s Nebula nominated story free on our website — and of course, you can buy the collection, too!   This honor comes on top of 2015 Locus Recommended Reading List appearances for both “Bone Swans” the novella and

A.C. Wise was kind enough to conduct an interview with me today about my forthcoming collection of short stories, The Spider Tapestries, that coincides with a giveaway of 10 paperback ARCs that launched today on Goodreads. You can read the interview here.   Details of the giveaway can be found here and they are also boxed inside the widget:   Goodreads Book Giveaway The Spider Tapestries by Mike Allen Giveaway ends February 29, 2016. See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

On Feb. 2 (Groundhog Day!) as part of the New York Review of Science Fiction/Hour of the Wolf reading series in Brooklyn, Clockwork Phoenix 5 author Barbara Krasnoff read her contribution to the anthology, the moving ghost story “Sabbath Wine,” providing audience members with a preview of the book. Barbara was paired with fantasy and horror writer Richard Bowes.   The reading was livestreamed and remains available on video. Barbara starts reading “Sabbath Wine” at about 12 minutes in.  

This post first appeared at Descent into Light.   I’m hugely honored that Jeffrey Thomas, author of the cult classic genre mashup Punktown, took time away from his busy writing schedule to craft a blurb for my forthcoming collection The Spider Tapestries.   And I’m doubly honored by what he had to say:   “We think of science fiction, fantasy, and horror as genres of the imagination, but someone like Mike Allen shows us how lacking in daring and vision

It’s a constant refrain here at Mythic Delirium Books right now: so much is happening that it’s a challenge to coherently chronicle it. Last week we enjoyed the unexpected but much deserved appearance of C.S.E. Cooney’s collection Bone Swans and novella “The Bone Swans of Amandale” on the 2015 Locus Recommended Reading List.   In the zine zone, we also released our featured story and featured poems for February, offering variations on hellish themes from the “pages” of the Jan.-March

On Feb. 1 (by coincidence, my birthday) Locus magazine posted its 2015 Recommended Reading List, and we at Mythic Delirium got a wonderful present.   Not only did our first book of short stories by one author, Bone Swans by C.S.E. Cooney, make the best collection list — the book’s original novella, “The Bone Swans of Amandale,” made the best novella list.   We’re so proud of Claire! To celebrate the recognition her work is getting, and encourage more of

This past week, Publishers Weekly reviewed my new short story collection, The Spider Tapestries, and I feel like one lucky author, because whoever wrote the review seems to have understood my super-strange little book on every level.   The gist of the review:   “Elegant language and surrealistic themes defy genre and moral expectations in the weird and transgressive stories found in this collection . . . Allen’s pairing of individualistic suffering and cosmic hugeness evokes a lyrical friction between