About this Site
My name's Jonathan Pinnock. I lead a dual life. In one half of this, I run a software development company called Jonathan Pinnock and Associates. If you've come here looking for that, here's where you need to go.However, if you've come here to find out about the other half of my life, as a writer of fiction and non-fiction, you've come to the right place.
If, on the other hand, you've arrived here by accident whilst searching for Japanese Tentacle Porn, I suggest you try using a different search engine.
If you'd like to contact me, my e-mail address is jon AT jpassoc DOT co DOT uk.
Books
Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens was published by Proxima Books in September 2011.
The Scott Prize-winning short story collection Dot(.), Dash(-) will be published by Salt in 2012.
Jun
12
Mrs Darcy, Episode Fifty-One
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Well, I’m still on a bit of a high after yesterday’s news, but other matters need to be attended to. In this episode, things descend into farce as Elizabeth Darcy has to contend with two different versions of her husband. But will Wickham save the day again?
Don’t forget the competition, by the way! The emporium will also be opening for business soon. I can’t wait.
Jun
12
The British Broadcasting Corporation
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Well, then. Towards the end of October last year, I sent the BBC my story “The Amazing Arnolfini and His Wife” for their annual “Opening Lines’ competition – which is essentially their route into broadcast for new short story writers. I’d chosen that one because (a) there weren’t any bad words in it and (b) I thought it might work well on the radio.
In March, I received a letter telling me that I was on the longlist of 65 out of over 600 stories received.
Towards the end of May, I received another letter telling me I was on the shortlist, from which three would be chosen for broadcast.
And today I received an e-mail telling me that my story is one of the ones that has been chosen! I am quite unbelievably excited about this. The broadcast date is some time in August, but you can be sure that I will be telling you all about it nearer the time. You may well get very bored with me.
Quick word about the story’s genesis. I wrote it for Round Two of my very first Eurofiction competition (run by Slingink) in response to a prompt to “write a story about trust”. Hence the subject matter: a husband-and-wife tightrope-walking duo (plenty of trust issues there, I think). As it happens, the story bombed completely in Eurofiction, but I kept faith in it and submitted it to the City of Derby competition in 2008, where Alex Keegan awarded it joint second place. It’s really nice to see the BBC giving it their seal of approval too.
Jun
11
The Muse and the Mojo
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My poem “The Muse and the Mojo” is up at Every Day Poets today. I wrote this in a slightly desperate frame of mind having run out of inspiration for Round 7 of last year’s Whittaker competition. I’d actually led the competition for the first five rounds, but took a serious dive in Round 6. “The Muse and the Mojo” stabilised things a bit, but the damage had been done 
Oddly enough, I was doing quite well in this year’s competition until Round 6. I see a pattern emerging. Round 7 is due in tomorrow midnight, and I haven’t the faintest clue what I’m going to write about. Ho hum.
Jun
10
Thursday Miscellany
Filed Under Reviews, Stuff | 2 Comments
In the absence of any coherent theme for a post, I thought I’d tell you about a few things that have caught my eye lately. This may become a regular feature or it may not. Here goes, anyway.
First of all, I’m assuming that everyone has already read Nik Perring’s “Not So Perfect“? If not, why not? Judging by the amount of coverage it’s had in the blogosphere and twittersphere, it should be selling by the bucketload, and it certainly deserves to. It’s about the size of a CD and doesn’t take much longer to read as it does to listen to one, but it punches way above its weight and the stories linger on long after you’ve finished reading it. My particular favourite (and I know that other reviewers have picked up on this one as well) is “My Wife Threw Up a Lemur”. This is a lovely piece of magical realism, which is never an easy genre to work in without tipping over into self-indulgence. But Perring knows exactly how far to push it and in doing so draws a picture of a relationship that is far more illuminating than a purely realistic description. Go and buy it if you haven’t already.
At the City of Derby last year, there were three of us in the running for prizes, but in reality it was a race for second place. The winning story (as it happens, another piece of superbly-handled magical realism) was so far ahead of the rest that I just sat back and enjoyed it when Gaby Pritchard read it out. She’s got a novel coming out under the name of Gabrielle Kimm later on this year and even though it’s historical fiction (which I’m usually not a fan of) I’m definitely going to get myself a copy. Check out that first paragraph. Gorgeous.
Finally, my favourite site at the moment is Good Show Sir – a real treat for fans of bad sci-fi and fantasy cover art. Soft targets, I know, but some of them are quite breathtakingly bad. They even sometimes get the author himself dropping in to comment. And as far as I’m aware, they’ve only made one serious mistake, and even then they were gracious enough to admit it when Toby pointed out the error of their ways.
Jun
9
Mrs Darcy, Episode Fifty!
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Good Lord, we have reached the half-century already. And in a suitably revelatory episode, our mysterious man with no name finally reaches home and find out who he is. Which means that things are about to get very complicated indeed.
But much more importantly, we have a competition! Anyone can enter, even those of you who aren’t following the story (although if you aren’t, you may find it more than a little challenging) – more details here. Go on, you know you want to go in for it, don’t you?
Jun
7
Bristol Short Story Prize Shortlist
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So the shortlist for this year’s Bristol Short Story Prize was announced today, and I still seem to be hanging in there. I’m really excited about this one, for several reasons. First of all, in just three years, the BSSP has emerged as one of the “biggies” (nearly 1500 entries this year, which is almost as many as the Fish). Secondly, the shortlisted stories all go into a nicely produced anthology. And thirdly, I get a cheque for £50 even if this is as far as I get!
It’s also nice to see a few Twitter chums in there as well: Claire King, Valerie O’Riordan and Clare Wallace. The prizegiving and announcement of the winners is on July 17th and I’m really looking forward to being there. The nailbiting starts now.
Jun
5
Mrs Darcy, Episode Forty-Nine
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And so we move closer to the next set-piece, as Wickham arrives at Pemberley with the Midsummer Ball in full swing. I actually managed to write this episode in time for this week’s VWC manuscript evening and we had an interesting discussion on things that could go amusingly wrong with a steam-powered gyrocopter, with the result that I scrapped my rather boring initial idea. Such is the value of a critique group
Jun
3
Interview at Folded Word
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I had an e-mail from Casey Murphy of Folded Word last week saying that he’d like to write a blog post about the process of sending out my stories, and was I interested in answering a few questions? Being the shy and retiring sort of person that I am, I hesitated for approximately 2.4 nanoseconds before replying in the affirmative.
As it happens, this is a textbook example of the power of Twitter. I’m pretty certain that the only reason that I was on Casey’s radar at all was because I’d had a piece of TwitFic published by PicFic, who are the TwitFic (or – in their terminology – picofiction) arm of Folded Word (you are following this, aren’t you?). Not long after this piece was published, I was longlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize, and – not surprisingly – I made a bit of a fuss about this on Twitter, and that seems to have led directly to this piece.
You don’t need me to explain the moral of this,do you? If you’re remotely serious about promoting yourself as a writer, get on Twitter now. Make sure you follow me, obviously – and I might even follow you back
Jun
3
Seedpod Again
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I’ve been getting a bit slack lately about submissions. This is mainly to do with spending most of my writing time on Mrs Darcy vs The Aliens and the odd bits of poetry that I’m doing for the current Whittaker competition (currently in third place, but due for a tumble, since you asked). But I had a bit of spare time yesterday, so I set a few odd bits and pieces off, two of which have already been accepted by the same place, @seedpodpub. As the publication suggests, these are both pieces of TwitFic, and they’re sort of related – but you’ll see what I mean later on this month when they appear.
Jun
2
Mrs Darcy, Episode Forty-Eight
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OK, I admit it – this is a bit of a filler episode. I knew what was going to happen in episodes 49 and 50, and then a rough idea of the sequence from 51 onwards, but I hadn’t a clue what to do in 48. But then I thought it might be fun to see things from Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s point of view for once, and it does actually move the plot on a little. It is, however, essentially one joke stretched out over 600 or so words, so it really depends on whether or not you like the joke or not.