Mike Allen (poet)

Allen is married to Anita Allen, with whom he runs Mythic Delirium Books.[1] In his day job, he is a news reporter and arts and culture columnist for a daily newspaper in Roanoke, Virginia,[1] where he currently lives.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has described Allen as being "[a]mong the better-known practitioners of speculative poetry"[2] and said his poems "work best when his bizarre lyricism is put in the service of a scary and taut narrative."[2]

He served as president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association from 2004 to 2006. He created the small press poetry journal Mythic Delirium in 1998.[3][4]

Published biannually, the journal has included poems by authors such as Suzette Haden Elgin, Neil Gaiman, Theodora Goss, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Darrell Schweitzer, Sonya Taaffe, Catherynne M. Valente, Ian Watson, and Jane Yolen. In 2013, Allen used the crowdfunding website Kickstarter to convert Mythic Delirium to a quarterly digital journal that publishes fiction and poetry.[5] Allen closed the journal in 2018 after publishing 20 digital issues and 50 issues overall.[6] For his work on Mythic Delirium, Allen was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2019.[7]

Allen also used Kickstarter to continue publishing Clockwork Phoenix, a fantasy fiction anthology series he began editing in 2008.[5][8][9]

Strange Horizons called the first crowdfunded volume, Clockwork Phoenix 4, a look into "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."[10]

Allen's short story "The Button Bin"[11] was a finalist for the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Short Story.[12] In 2015, his debut short story collection Unseaming was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award for best single author collection.[13] In 2017, an anthology he edited, Clockwork Phoenix 5, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award for best anthology.[14] In 2021, Allen received a second Shirley Jackson Award nomination for his 2020 collection Aftermath of an Industrial Accident: Stories.[15]

Allen has won the Rhysling Award for best speculative poem three times, in 2003, 2006, and 2007.[16]

• "Epochs in Exile: A Fantasy Trilogy" (co-authored with Charles M. Saplak), Rhysling Award, Best Long Poem, 2003 (winner)
• "The Strip Search," Rhysling Award, Best Short Poem, 2006 (winner)
• "The Journey to Kailash," Rhysling Award, Best Long Poem, 2007 (winner)
• "The Button Bin," Nebula Award, Best Short Story, 2008 (nominee)
• Unseaming, Shirley Jackson Award, Best Collection, 2014 (nominee)
• Clockwork Phoenix 5, World Fantasy Award, Best Anthology, 2017 (nominee)
• World Fantasy Award, Special Award—Non-professional, for Mythic Delirium, 2019 (nominee)
• Aftermath of an Industrial Accident: Stories, Shirley Jackson Award, Best Collection, 2020 (nominee)

• Official website
• Mike Allen at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• A Conversation with Mike Allen at The Mumpsimus
• Twisting Paths: An Interview with Mike Allen at Virginia Libraries
• Weird Fiction Review | Mike Allen's Unsettling Collection "Unseaming"
• Mike Allen: The Allure of the Forbidden
• Postscripts to Darkness Author Interview: Mike Allen