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.
Feb
19
PicFic
Filed Under Acceptances | Leave a Comment
Here’s a classic example of the importance of listening to what people say to you when they reject your work. As you may remember, back in January I was in the finals of the NYC Midnight “Tweet Me a Story” contest, where the key word to be used in our entries was “below”. As it happens, none of my entries made it into the top 25, but I did like one of them. So I tweaked it a bit and sent it off to @nanoism, one of the TwitFic outlets that I hadn’t (still haven’t!) cracked. This is part of the response that I got back from Ben White, Nanoism’s editor:
This was a close call … I think JS Graustein over at @picfic might really enjoy this, so you might think of slapping a clever title on it (which would help add that depth) and sending it her way.
Now @picfic was the other major Twitter market that I hadn’t cracked, so I of course took his advice. Last night I received my acceptance … from Ben White, who just happened to be covering whilst PicFic’s editor was finishing off another project! The story will appear on PicFic some time in April or May, and it’s called “Not So Much a Rough Guide”.
Meanwhile, I still need to take the other piece of advice that Ben gave me when he rejected it at Nanoism. Which was “send me another” …
Jan
30
Thaumatrope
Filed Under Acceptances, Publications | 4 Comments
Yesterday I was really pleased to hear that I’d had a piece of TwitFic accepted by Thaumatrope and here it is, published on their Twitter stream today. I was particularly pleased to hear about this one, because Thaumatrope were closed to submissions when I first joined Twitter, and they’ve only just re-opened. It’s also one of my favourite pieces of TwitFic that I’ve written to date. (And I got paid $1.20 for it – which is pro rate!)
So that’s six of the major TwitFic markets cracked now (@escarp,@outshine, @seedpod, @tweetthemeat, @thaumatrope and @7×20). However, at the time of writing, @nanoism and @picfic have yet to yield …
Jan
19
Vestal Review
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Well, I’d completely forgotten about this one. Some time back, the highly prestigious Vestal Review put out a call for a new feature entitled Dirty Dozen. The requirement was for pieces of exactly twelve words in length with a slightly risqué theme. So I sent one, entitled “Opposites”, and I found out today that it has been accepted and published. I’m rather pleased about this because I’m guessing that – it being Vestal Review – they must have got quite a few submissions. Not only that, but it will also appear in the next print edition.
However, I do have this nagging feeling that this nano stuff is all very well, but I really should be getting some longer pieces out there …
Jan
1
Tweet the Meat Again!
Filed Under Acceptances | 2 Comments
Well, that’s a nice start to the New Year. Just heard that I’ve had an acceptance from Tweet the Meat of a tweet on the subject of “Sin”. That’s all, really. I think it comes out next week.
Nov
17
Outshine
Filed Under Acceptances | 8 Comments
And another Twitter fiction market is cracked! This was a bit more of a challenge, as Outshine require tweets involving optimistic, near-future science fiction, and it’s so much easier to write dystopian stuff. But it was worth persevering with, as they pay $5 per tweet – which, in this case, works out at just under 23¢ a word. And there aren’t many markets out there that pay that kind of rate, are there? My piece goes up on Saturday December 12th, and I’ll link to it then.
Nov
17
escarp
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Here’s another Twitter fiction market that I discovered thanks to the twitfic forum: escarp. I submitted a piece to them last night, received the acceptance this morning, and it’s just been published here. Interestingly, I’ve just been editing a story for submission to a competition that’s closing soon, and I’ve been finding that I seem to be a lot harsher on loose writing than I used to be. Now maybe this is just something that happens with practice anyway, but I’d like to think that messing around with Twitter may have had something to do with it too.
Nov
15
Zombology
Filed Under Acceptances, Anthologies | 4 Comments
It’s always a pleasure to find a new market, so I was particularly excited when one of my colleagues on Café Doom brought the excellent Library of the Living Dead Press to my attention. LotLDP is something of a specialist imprint, dealing exclusively in Zombie-related books (I’m guessing that you’d spotted that already). Now I like dealing with organisations who know their market, especially when they are run by someone called Dr Pus – even if I have a feeling that it may not be his real name. In fact, he may well not have had any medical training at all, come to think of it.
Still, the good news is that the aforementioned Dr Pus has just accepted my piece “Quarantine Island” for his forthcoming compilation “Zombology III”. So woo-hoo, I think. Yes, definitely a woo-hoo.
[EDITED TO ADD: In case anyone out there is interested in submitting to LotLD, here are full details of all their current anthologies. Prolific, aren't they?]
Nov
10
7×20
Filed Under Acceptances | 2 Comments
I’ve found a new forum to hang out on: twitfic, which is dedicated to (guess) Twitter fiction, and I’m already reaping the benefits. I had no idea how many outlets there were for Twitter fiction, and I certainly hadn’t come across 7×20 before. This one takes poetry as well as fiction, so I sent them a haiku and it’s been accepted for publication in December. I have this horrible feeling that Twitter fiction could get addictive. But is that necessarily a bad thing?
Nov
10
Fifty-Two Stitches, Year Two
Filed Under Acceptances | 3 Comments
After the phenomenal success of the first year of Fifty-Two Stitches (copies of the anthology still available here). the redoubtable Aaron Polson has decided to do it all over again, and I’m very pleased to say that my flash “The Wrong Thing to Say” is going to be part of it. Good to hear that fellow Year 1 alumnus (or is it alumna? I have no idea – so much for a classical education) Cate Gardner is going to be in there too, and I’m guessing that she won’t be the only other repeat offender. And in honour of Fifty-Two Stitches going into its second year, I have nicked the new site banner to head up this post. Nice, isn’t it?
Nov
5
Eclectic Flash
Filed Under Acceptances | 2 Comments
I’ve just heard that my rather peculiar bilingual piece “The Language of Angels” has been accepted for the inaugural issue of Eclectic Flash. I think I like this magazine already. More about the piece when it gets published.
[EDITED TO ADD: Have you seen the bios of the editors? I like this magazine even more now I've seen these.]