B. Morris Allen's Blog, page 2

New story – After the Fall

My fourth story of the year is “After the Fall”, out in Daikajuzine yesterday. It’s one of four planned stories (two written) about Rezin Miller, a reluctant Attendant for the Observatory, whose job is simply to be present at the decline of a civilization. In this story, he’s tasked with watching the decline of a culture once famous for art and culture, and now reduced to writing advertising jingles. With any luck, I’ll place more of these Barren Witness stories soon and you can read more of Rez...

New story – Crivăț and the Snow Curse

In Moldova (and neighbouring countries), there’s a tradition that on March 1st, you give people you care about a mărțișor (muhrt-sea-shore) – a little red and white decoration. At the end of March, you tie all your mărțișors (mărțișoare) on a tree. One of the stories behind it is of Spring and Winter meeting in a forest and fighting such that Spring bleeds a little on Winter’s snow. This is a substantially altered retelling of that story. It was published in mid-March 2025 in Hearth Stories‘ fir...

New story – NightMantle

My third story of the year is “NightMantle”, which came out in Foofaraw on 11 March 2025. A 180 degree turn from “Waiting for the Winter”, “NightMantle” is a short, light-hearted piece about superheroes – and supervillains. Mostly supervillains.

It came to me pretty much as is. I had fun with it, and hope you do too.

Songspiration – Waiting for the Winter

SongArtistStoryWaiting for the WinterPlanet P ProjectWaiting for the Winter

Planet P Project is the alter ego of Tony Carey. You might know him from a stint on Rainbow’s early albums or from his ’80s hits, “I Won’t Be Home Tonight” or “A Fine, Fine Day”. Planet P was at times an outlet for his political commentary. “Waiting for the Winter” includes the line, “he knows that winter is coming / and he knows he won’t survive”. I liked the bleak tone of it – somewhere between acceptance ...

New story – Waiting for the Winter

I’m a little behind in this post, but who knew March would be such a busy month for publication? In fact, 2025 is shaping up to be a good year for me, story-wise.

My second story of the year, “Waiting for the Winter”, came out in Phano at the very beginning of March. Phano is a brand new magazine as of this year (“Waiting” is in the second issue), edited by Amman Sabet. I’ve published stories by Amman in Metaphorosis (“Absurd of a Feather” and “The Ghosts of Daughters Possible”, so it’s only fai...

New story – Cupernicity

One of my favorite stories, and my first of 2025, has just been published in The Future Fire. “Cupernicity” is a coming of age novelette about Nusha, a tech-oriented teen who lives in a benthodil – a vast undersea plant that provides a habitat for human explorers who came pursuing an alien signal, only to find a planet with no land. Nusha’s just growing up, with a crush on Carsa, a beautiful young poet. Crisis throws them together with two other young people when they learn benthodils are failin...

Awards eligibility 2024

As a writer

I had two stories published in 2024. The first is a light-hearted story about death and the afterlife. The second is a more serious look at difficult choices when you find paradise, but know other people will only mess it up.

Kaleidotrope, Winter 2024

“Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is”
Kaleidotrope
January 2024
(6,210 words)

Apparently Hades was better. That’s what Angie said, anyway. She’d never been there, but she said she had friends who knew. I had my doubts.

ParSec, Autumn 20...

Sadly, slowly

While I often draw inspiration for my writing from music, I seldom make writing playlists of any kind. When I do (as with the Score anthology), it’s generally on a one song/one story basis.

However, today I set out to write a story that had defined segments, and I chose one song per segment to help set the mood. It’s not technically songspiration, since here the story inspired the choice of song, but it’s similar. Here’s the result.

Songspiration – Outburst / A Conversion of Crows

SongArtistStoryWhitesnakeDavid CoverdaleOutburst / A Conversion of Crows

There’s one song in particular that’s led to multiple stories – two so far, and perhaps another pending. When Deep Purple had run its course, and before Whitesnake had begun, singer David Coverdale, casting about for a direction, did some of his best work on the albums White Snake  and North Winds. The former had a song also called “Whitesnake”. In short, it couldn’t have been much more Whitesnake. The song, le...

Songspiration – Start With Stones

SongArtistStoryLift Up Every StoneJohn HiattStart With Stones

I liked the rhythm of John Hiatt’s gospelish “Lift Up Every Stone”, and somehow it mixed with Patricia McKillip’s The Bards of Bone Plain to form a story about a prince seeking magic and finding it in a lonely croftholder. It’s a lot more romantic and cheery than Hiatt’s song, but definitely took its foundation from him.

The story first appeared in my collection, Start With Stones, and it marks what I see as the first tim...