 I don’t know that I have a remedy to suggest other than continuing to put our best work out there. And we should keep doing what we can to lift each other up. Celebrate horror authors who are women, who are POC, who are QUILTBAG. We should venture out of our comfortable lanes and explore work beyond the latest product from a long-time bestselling author and even outside the latest writings from the circle of friends you quaff beers with at cons every year, fine as all those books undoubtedly are. Nebula, Shirley Jackson and two-time World Fantasy award finalist Mike Allen wears many hats. As editor and publisher of the Mythic Delirium Books imprint, he helmed Mythic Delirium magazine and the five volumes in the Clockwork Phoenix anthology series. His own short stories have been gathered in three collections: Unseaming, The Spider Tapestries and newly-released Aftermath of an Industrial Accident. He’s won the Rhysling Award for poetry three times. A dark fantasy novel, The Black Fire Concerto, appeared in 2013. His novella “The Comforter,” a sequel to his Nebula Award-nominated horror story “The Button Bin,” has just appeared in an anthology of four dark long-form tales, A Sinister Quartet. For more than a decade he’s worked as the arts and culture columnist for the daily newspaper in Roanoke, Va., where he and his wife Anita live with a cat so full of trouble she’s named Pandora. You can follow Mike’s exploits as a writer at descentintolight.com, as an editor at mythicdelirium.com, and all at once on Twitter at @mythicdelirium. WEBSITE LINKS Aftermath of an Industrial Accident: https://mythicdelirium.com/our-books-9#Aftermath A Sinister Quartet: https://mythicdelirium.com/our-books-8#Sinister Mythic Delirium Books: https://mythicdelirium.com/ Mike Allen’s home page: http://descentintolight.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mythicdelirium Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/time.shark Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Mike-Allen/e/B004G81HLS -- Mike Allen Author/Editor/Publisher http://www.clockworkphoenix.com http://www.mythicdelirium.com http://descentintolight.com Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself? I was born in Minneapolis, spent my early childhood on Guam, my formative years in a tiny coal-mining town in far Southwest Virginia and most of the rest of my life in a not-quite-as-Southwest Virginia city called Roanoke, which is not the same Roanoke where all the colonists disappeared, though my city get mistaken for that one all the time. I’ve been married to my best friend and creative partner, Anita, for 28 years. I work in a collapsing industry: I’m a newspaper reporter. I’ve stubbornly stayed on board when many others have bailed because I really love my job. I had a love-hate relationship with horror fiction in my childhood, at first mostly hate, that bloomed into starry-eyed adoration in my teen years once I encountered Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. Which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life? There are few that I would want to meet, as so many of them originate in my nightmares. But. In a way this feels like the too obvious answer, but it rings true: encountering the being that goes by the name “Lenahan” in “The Button Bin” and “Maria” in the sequels “The Quiltmaker” and “The Comforter” would likely either give me a heart attack, or, if it had its way with me, make me desperately wish that I’d had one and that I’d died from it. Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing? Like a million other people I first became fascinated with genre as a kid via the books of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. From there my reading went in many directions, though it always stuck to the otherworldly in some way. Non-horror writers who loomed huge in my formative years included T. S. Eliot, Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, Madeleine L’Engle, Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Stephen R. Donaldson and William Gibson. Reading Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian in my late thirties was a transformative experience in its own way. I had for years struggling to complete what’s now my best known story, “The Button Bin.” Something about the gorgeous language and horrific violence of Blood Meridian jarred the necessary pieces loose. The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations. What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions? I feel like I have been especially lucky among journeyman horror writers. In the city where I live, where I work as a newspaper reporter and write the weekly arts column, and where I have in the past done a smidge of amateur theater acting, no one seems to bat an eyelash when I call myself a horror writer. I mentioned this at a convention in February -- an honest to god in-person convention, remember those? -- and heard from other panelists that, especially for women creators, a stigma against the genre still rears its sneering head when the subject comes up. That’s certainly troublesome. I don’t know that I have a remedy to suggest other than continuing to put our best work out there. And we should keep doing what we can to lift each other up. Celebrate horror authors who are women, who are POC, who are QUILTBAG. We should venture out of our comfortable lanes and explore work beyond the latest product from a long-time bestselling author and even outside the latest writings from the circle of friends you quaff beers with at cons every year, fine as all those books undoubtedly are. A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years? I’d be hesitant to make concrete predictions given how fast world events shift from week to week, even day to day. I have encountered reactions from a couple of potential readers who were reluctant to even engage in horror because of the stress generated by the daily news cycle. In the United States, at least, the geeks have won the pop culture war, and horror is a beneficiary of that, but not to the extent that horror as a commercial publishing category has made a comeback. Horror must have started looking lucrative to someone in the New York publishing world, considering that Tor is launching a horror-only imprint, and I hope that those circumstances get better rather than worse. On the writing side, the creative side, in terms of where horror can go, there are so many top-notch talents writing horror these days, from grizzled veterans to bright-eyed up-and-comers, I think the possibilities are endless. Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it? I feel like this question almost answers itself, hahaha. Humanity stays preoccupied with death and decay in its many forms, whether we as individuals wish to admit it, and horror uses imagination to explore these topics, whether for relatively light-hearted thrill ride fun or for serious and grim meditation on injustice and brutal cosmic absurdity. What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre? Aside from a lucrative income for all its worthy practitioners? An online article last year posed the question “Where is the Jordan Peele of horror literature?” The framing of the question made me cringe a bit because it seemed to me to erase decades of contributions made to horror by POC authors, but there’s a legitimate point embedded in there about failures in the publishing industry and even in the broader horror community to give these creators the wide renown that they deserve. What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice of? I have to proffer a caveat here. As a full-time journalist who moonlights as a publisher as well as a fiction writer -- and who never learned to speed read -- I haven’t broadly consumed the many options the genre offers. My bookshelves and my Kindle are full of titles that caught my eye that I still haven’t read! I had the pleasure last year of writing blurbs for Craig Laurance Gidney’s novel A Spectral Hue, A. C. Wise’s novella Catfish Lullaby and Christina Sng’s poetry book A Collection of Dreamscapes. All three of these titles approach the tropes of horror with fresh and refreshing perspectives. For the sake of enlightened self-interest, I’d like to single out the two debut novellas included in the latest anthology from my Mythic Delirium Books imprint, A Sinister Quartet. Jessica P. Wick’s “An Unkindness” is a dark fantasy that includes one of the most harrowing depictions of the faerie kingdom that I’ve ever read. Amanda J. McGee’s “Viridian” is a cinematic evocation of the Gothic horror story that also reworks an old folktale in a way that restores its full gruesome glory. Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative, that have stayed with you? Generally, yes. I mean, one shouldn’t pay too much attention to reviews, but we writers sometimes just can’t help ourselves. Most of my publications have appeared in places outside of the dominant genre markets, so I’ll confess that it was incredibly gratifying when the first review that appeared for my debut horror collection Unseaming was a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and even more gratifying when it happened again in May for my follow up horror collection Aftermath of an Industrial Accident. I think my favorite negative review to date was a reader review that complained about my story collection Unseaming because, to paraphrase, the “chapters” didn’t tell a continuous story. What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult? Finding the time to do it, mainly. All other issues are secondary to that. Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? No, but as fiction writer, I am reluctant to build a story around subjects with which I don’t have at least a little bit of “in real life” familiarity. In this sense I consider myself lucky to have the day job I do, as my career as a reporter has brought me into contact with many walks of life outside my own. That said, those brief contacts don’t instantly make me an expert on the things I’ve experienced, so I try to be mindful of that as I write. If, within the context of horror, the “subjects” that this question refers to are taboos: obviously horror at its core involves addressing and exposing things not discussed in polite company, I guess you could say. Different stories have different needs. Some require the unspeakable to be left unspoken. Some require that the writer pull out all the stops. Writing is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? My first poetry publication appeared in 1991, my first short story in 1992, and I’d like to think my writing has evolved significantly in the interim. However, all three of my story collections published over the past six years (in addition to Unseaming and Aftermath, there’s The Spider Tapestries, which compiles some of my surreal science fiction and fantasy tales) contain works I wrote in the 1990s, and it’s been kind of a surprise to me how little I’ve changed in terms of my appetite for poetic language, doomed characters and gleeful carnage. I can report something that many other writers have reported, that as I’ve gotten more experienced as a writer, the process has gotten trickier rather than easier, because I’m super-conscious of my previous bad habits and taking pains to avoid them. Even though I am a firm believer in cranking out that first draft, whatever it takes, and fixing it up later, I can’t help but be more self-critical as I go. What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing? I can’t settle on just one. First, from my much missed friend Nelson S. Bond: always know what your ending is going to be. Your characters and plot might move toward or away from that ending, but you should have their goal in mind to start with. Second, from Thomas Ligotti: when you’re putting a collection together, use it as a chance to make your stories better, even if they’ve been previously published. Third, the “three sentences rule,” a technique I learned from Elizabeth Bear’s blog: Whether you’re stuck or exhausted or short on time, you can always add at least three sentences to a work in progress. Which of your characters is your favourite? My favorite character these days is a fellow named John Hairston, that not many folks have had a chance to meet just yet. He’s African American and a Korean War veteran and he’s been through Hell (in a more literal way than most) and has a bit of Hell burning permanently inside him. He ended up playing a major role in “The Comforter,” my horror novella included in A Sinister Quartet -- which was something I was not planning to do when I started that story. He also appears in my story “Nolens Volens” in the Broken Eye Books anthology Nowhereville and his origin story, “The Sun Saw,” is the first story in my newest collection, Aftermath of an Industrial Accident. “The Sun Saw” is also scheduled to appear in the Chaosium anthology The Leaves of a Necronomicon, edited by the late Joseph S. Pulver Jr., whose loss everyone in the horror community is still feeling. That book, alas, is kind of in limbo for the moment, like so many others right now. Which of your books best represents you? I’m going to say it’s my newest collection, Aftermath of an Industrial Accident. It’s definitely a horror collection, but it draws in examples from all the different modes I’ve worked in, whether that’s gritty noir or surrealism or secondary-world fantasy or science fiction or satirical humor or even poetry. There’s even a couple of poetry collaborations, something I used to do on the regular, one with World Fantasy Award winner C. S. E. Cooney and one with Bram Stoker Award winner Christina Sng. Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us? I am particularly fond of the opening paragraph of my story “Burn the Kool Kidz at the Stake,” which first appeared in the venerable zine Not One of Us and is reprinted in Aftermath of an Industrial Accident: Michelle says, “Nobody’s going to die tonight.” She puts her squat silver revolver right up against Darren’s temple. “And you’re nobody.” Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next? I suppose I’ve been dropping hints about my latest books all through this interview. Mythic Delirium Books, a.k.a. Anita and I, are releasing two books in June and July, originally timed to go with a number of events that are no longer happening because of the shutdown brought about by the pandemic. The first, A Sinister Quartet, is a collection of four long dark fantasy and horror tales, modeled after past compilations like Stephen King’s Different Seasons, but with four different authors contributing stories. C. S. E. Cooney supplied a new short novel, “The Twice-Drowned Saint,” set in an ice-walled city ruled by tyrannical angels, and there’s three novellas that I’ve already mentioned, Jessica P. Wick’s “An Unkindness,” Amanda J. McGee’s “Viridian” and my own “The Comforter,” which is officially the sequel to my stories “The Button Bin” and “The Quiltmaker” and ties into several of my other works. The second, Aftermath of an Industrial Accident, is a new collection of my horror stories, and I consider it a follow up to Unseaming, which came out in 2014 and remains my most successful book to date, at least in terms of sales. Aftermath even has the same cover artist (Danielle Tunstall) and cover model (Alexandra Johnson) but I think it’s a wilder book, in that while Unseaming kind of sticks with pieces that mostly fit within the parameters of the traditional horror story, Aftermath pushes those limits. The next thing I’m going to working on is the second draft of a new novel, working title These Bloody Filaments, that also features my current favorite character, John Hairston. If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice? I’m thinking more of horror movies here: I detest the cliche of having the sympathetic black character be an inevitable victim. Especially if they’re written to sacrifice themselves to save the white heroes. I despise it even in otherwise good horror films. It’s a hoary, lazy, problematic trope that needs to be ground up in the garbage disposal and never fished back out. What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you? I already mentioned the ones I’ve recently blurbed, and I also have written an introduction for a terrific collection of speculative fiction, Anthems Outside Time by Kenneth Schneyer, and another blurb for a truly twisted thriller, The American by Jeffrey Thomas. Books that I have read just for kicks in the past five years that have absolutely galvanized me include Gemma Files’ Experimental Film, Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts and Kij Johnson’s The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe. I don’t think I’m going to single out anyone’s book as a disappointment, especially as I’m quite aware that any criticism I might offer can probably be used against my own writing with equal verve, heh. I will say in general that, when reading a book that has been extensively hyped by fans and reviewers alike, even showered with awards -- I’ve frequently found myself puzzling what exactly the big deal was, as whatever resonance and emotional power it supposedly had just isn’t there for me. What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do? And what would be the answer? Dang, it’s really hard for me to think up a question that I haven’t been asked at some point over the past thirty years. I’m going to run with this one, which I have been asked before but never quite with this phrasing: Did you have plans for sequels to your novel The Black Fire Concerto? My only published novel to date, a dark fantasy called The Black Fire Concerto, was the only book ever released by Haunted Stars Publications. It’s still available because John O’Neill with Haunted Stars graciously handed all the rights over to me before he closed up shop. There’s at least a dedicated few who have read it and loved it -- fanfic even exists -- but it did not find a large audience. I love the anti-heroines of that book, Olyssa and Erzelle, my spin on many classic sword-and-sorcery duos (were it not for John Hairston, they would be my favorites) and I did in fact write a complete draft for a sequel, The Ghoulmaker’s Aria, but I left it sitting when it became clear other projects had better potential for sales and acclaim. If some freak twist of good fortune cleared my schedule and relieved me of the need to hustle for money, I would go back to that draft, complete it, and continue the series, which I’ve for years imagined as a tetralogy. I even know the titles of the still-unwritten books, The Vulpine Variations and The Stormblight Symphony. Perchance to dream! I suppose I could have phrased the question “What is your dream project?” and come up with the same answer. Check out our review of Aftermath of an Industrial Accident here  In these twenty-three stories and poems, two-time World Fantasy Award nominee Mike Allen spins twisted narratives, some wound through the fabric of our world, some set in imagined pasts or futures, all plumbing the depths of human darkness. “The consistency, here, is simply excellence,” writes Bram Stoker Award finalist and Punktown creator Jeffrey Thomas in his introduction. “You are holding in your hands an overflowing cornucopia of monstrous goodness.” "Each tale in Aftermath of an Industrial Accident packs a punch that will keep you willingly pinned to the wall." —Christina Sng, author of A Collection of Nightmares "Mike Allen habitually upends Lovecraftian tropes with his own brand of cosmic horror." —Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase   THE HEART AND SOUL OF HORROR REVIEW WEBSITES Comments are closed.
|
Archives
May 2023
|
RSS Feed
|
|