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.
Mar
19
New Sun Rising – Stories for Japan
Filed Under Anthologies | 4 Comments
I’m guessing this one won’t need much explanation. “New Sun Rising – Stories for Japan” is looking for submissions. The indefatigable Greg McQueen, who was behind the Haiti and Pakistan books is once again the driving force. So what are you waiting for? Stop reading this and get writing, chaps and chapesses. Guidelines here.
Mar
10
The Archangel Gets a Mention…
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… from no less a person than Scott Pack. I’m really pleased about this, because it’s a great little story by Ian Cundell (although I think his other one in the anthology, “Woolgathering”, is even better) and he needs to pull his finger out and write a few more like it. And if Mr Pack’s endorsement isn’t enough encouragement to do so, I don’t know what is.
Oh, and if you fancy buying the book to read both of those (along with a whole load of other good stuff including pieces by two – I said TWO! – of the Scott Prize shortlistees) go here and click the big “Buy Now” button. You know you want to.
Mar
7
The STIRRED POeT 2011 Anthology
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So the STIRRED POeT competition over at The Write Idea is over for another year. After a complete failure to chart in any of the six rounds last year, I actually managed to come 3rd in one this year and win another – which means that two of my poems are going to make it into the anthology. Yay!
(Actually, I did just about scrape into the very first STIRRED POeT anthology a couple of years back with my poem “This is How We Deal with Illegal Aliens in Alaska” – a satirical description of an encounter between Sarah Palin and a flying saucer. Here are a couple of stanzas which will give you a flavour of the thing:
He said, “I bring you peace and karma,
to the land of God-like Barack Obama!”
Well, I didn’t know what to make of that,
’cos sure as hell, God’s no Democrat,
and I thought I saw something under his robes
that looked like one of them anal probes,
so I picked up my rifle and blew off his head.
He writhed a bit, then he dropped down dead.
And so on.)
Anyway, this time around my two contributions are, respectively, “The Longueurs of Après-Midi” (a meditation on life, the universe and surrealist polo) and “A Lover’s Alphabet” (a humorous sonnet containing some Bad Words). I’ll give you details on how to purchase the anthology as and when.
Feb
7
I was very pleased to find out this morning that my story “The Wrong Bots” (a rather daft caper involving space pirates and a consignment of sexbots) has been accepted for the 100 Stories for Queensland anthology. I actually wrote it quite a while back when I was a regular participant in the Café Doom weekly flash challenge (I think the prompt word on this occasion was indeed “pirate”) and I never got around to sending it anywhere. So it’s nice to see it finding a good home. If you take a look at that link above you will see that there are some very fine writers involved in this one, so it’s going to be a collection worth getting hold of.
In other news, I’ve had another story (“The Colour of Criticism”) picked for the Every Day Fiction Three anthology (if you’ve got time, check out this excellent post on genre and literary fiction by EDF supremo Camille Gooderham-Campbell which pretty much sums up what I love about EDF).
I’ve also been taking part in this year’s STIRRED POeTS competition over at The Write Idea, and I was very pleased to bag a third place for my second-round entry. I was even more pleased, not to say stunned, to win the third round – especially as my winning entry was a sonnet. The results are decided by anonymous popular vote of the participants (who include some first-rate poets), so I am extremely chuffed to find myself in joint second place at the mid-way stage. However, I have a feeling that my fourth round effort may very well score nul points, so I am not counting my chickens yet by any means.
Oh, and I almost forgot to say that last week I completed the last rewrite on Mrs Darcy, on receipt of which my editor pressed the button that sent the finished manuscript to Salt. Exciting, eh?
Feb
3
The Archangel and the White Hart
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Some time ago (actually, an embarrassingly long time ago), regular readers of this blog may recall me mentioning that I’d been invited to edit an anthology for the fab writers’ circle that I belong to (the Verulam Writers’ Circle, in case you didn’t know). I published some guidelines as to what I was looking for and set myself an absurd deadline for completing work on it.
Because it was an absurd deadline, I ignored it.
But no one minded, because they told me that it didn’t matter as long as it was ready for the 2011 Get Writing conference. Get Writing is on February 19th, incidentally (you are coming, aren’t you – it’s almost sold out!) They had, however, forgotten about how I deal with deadlines.
Those of you who are familiar about how I deal with deadlines will not be remotely surprised to hear that I uploaded the PDF to Lulu on Monday of this week. Fortunately, Lulu really are as quick as the claim to be (quicker, in fact) and I actually had a proof copy in my hand yesterday.
And what a fine artefact it is – Dave Weaver‘s excellent cover (reproduced above) is so much better than it appears on Lulu.
But this is probably my favourite bit – Ian Cundell‘s blurb on the back cover. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how to write a blurb. Consider the bar duly raised.
By the way, in case anyone’s wondering what lies behind the title, we had a long debate about this. In the end we opted for something that simply reflected the names of where we meet. “The Archangel” is for St Michael’s church hall where we have our fortnightly formal meetings, and “The White Hart” is the pub where we have our informal get-togethers on the other weeks.
So, um, go and buy a copy! Even better, if you’re coming to Get Writing, hold onto your money and buy a copy there to save on postage and packing.
Now can I get back to those rewrites for Mrs Darcy?
Jan
13
100 Stories for Queensland
Filed Under Anthologies, Stunts | 4 Comments
In my last post I said I wasn’t going to be submitting much this year, preferring to concentrate on writing full length stuff. So how come I’ve sent off no less than three pieces in the last couple of days? I don’t think it was to demonstrate the power of an unreliable narrator …
One of them at least is for a very good cause. Hot on the heels of “100 Stories for Haiti” and “50 Stories for Pakistan”, submissions are now open for “100 Stories for Queensland.” Here’s the link to the Facebook page for the project and here’s where you need to go to submit something. Go on, you know you want to. Even if you don’t get accepted (and, frankly, there’s every chance they’ll throw my effort out) or don’t even submit, please buy the book when it comes out.
It’s fascinating to see how this came about, by the way. Trevor Belshaw, a veteran of both previous projects, put out a call on Twitter and Facebook by simply asking the question “100 Stories for Queensland?”. Jodi Cleghorn, a fellow writer, publisher and (more importantly) Brisbanite responded with “Yes.” And from there the momentum just grew and grew. The power of the net, once again.
Meanwhile, I have other things on my mind tonight. I’ve signed up for NYC Midnight’s “Tweet Me a Story” contest again. All you have to do is think up three tweets based on a given word, and you’re given five hours to do this in – so no problem, right? Wrong. If you’re in the UK, the five hours start at midnight. Wish me luck 
Jan
11
The Best of Every Day Fiction Three
Filed Under Acceptances, Anthologies | 2 Comments
I found out the other day that my story “Hidden Shallows” is going to be in the next Every Day Fiction anthology. I should at this point very quickly say to any other EDF authors reading this that I believe decisions are still being made about other stories. I was told about this one early because it’s getting close to its contractual sell-by date for inclusion in the anthology; it was in fact the story that opened the third year of EDF if I remember correctly.
This story had a bit of an odd genesis. It was done for the penultimate round of Slingink Eurofiction a couple of years back, at a point where I was feeling quite dispirited about writing, having come up with some pretty lacklustre stuff in the earlier rounds. But I’d always wanted to write a story called “Hidden Shallows” so that one day I could bring out a collection called ”Hidden Shallows and Other Stories”. Spot the conflicted author there, eh? Looking back, it was a somewhat over-defensive title for a book and I’ve long since dropped it. However, one of the prompts for this round of Eurofiction was to write a story set near water and at the time it seemed a good opportunity to at least get a story to fit the title.
So I threw together this ultra-lightweight piece about the base fantasies of two hyper-intelligent women sitting idly by a lake, thinking that it would be dismissed as a bit of worthless fluff - only to find that since then it’s probably got the best reaction from a cross-section of readers of almost anything I’ve written. Sometimes you can predict what’s going to work and what isn’t. And sometimes you can be hopelessly wrong. In a good way as well a bad one.
Jan
7
Eclectic Flash: The Best of 2010
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And here’s another anthology that’s fresh off the press. This one came out at the start of 2011 and collects together the best bits from the first year of the splendid Eclectic Flash. In case you haven’t already seen it, their “editors” page is well worth a look – scary bunch, eh? (Nice to see the correct usage of the word “riffle”, by the way.)
My contribution is a peculiar little piece entitled “The Language of Angels”, roughly half of which is in French. Buy a copy if you fancy hunting for schoolboy errors. Even better than that, it also features work by four of my fellow denizens of The Write Idea: Donna Gagnon, Michelle Louis, Gordon Darroch and Helen Whittaker.
You can order a copy here. Go on, you know you want to.
Jan
6
The Best of Every Day Poets One
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OK, prepare yourselves for a flurry of posts about stuff that happened over the break …
First up is the publication of “The Best of Every Day Poets One”. I’ve got three poems in this: “School Uniform”, “Grey Goo” and “Tasty Teresa” and it will be really nice to see them in print.
The thing I love about Every Day Poets is that they publish such a wide range of material, both highbrow and lowbrow. However, I have to say that all three of my contributions here are on the distinctly lowbrow side. Two of them rhyme, for God’s sake. The other one is my one and only attempt at a Fib. I’m not good with form poetry, but I can just about manage a 1-1-2-3-5-8 syllabic pattern, and in this one you get two for the price of one, because there’s a second part that goes 8-5-3-2-1-1.
Anyway, I can thoroughly recommend that you buy this one. Here’s where you need to go.
Dec
20
52 Stitches
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My little friend here would like to draw your attention to a splendid new 52 Stitches anthology which is now available to buy. You really should buy this one, for two reasons.
First of all, it’s very good and contains some splendidly creepy flashes from the likes of Cate Gardner, Mercedes Yardley, Barry Napier, Rachel Green, CL Scarr and many more (oh, and me).
Secondly, as some of you may be aware, one of the authors involved, Jamie Eyberg, was killed along with his wife in a tragic accident earlier this year, leaving behind two young kids. All profits from the anthology will therefore be given to Jamie’s memorial fund for their benefit. I only had the most tangential interactions with Jamie, but he seemed a nice and genuine guy as well as being a talented and original writer. A sad loss.