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.
Nov
22
Ink, Sweat and Tears Again and Other Stuff
Filed Under Acceptances, Competitions, Mrs Darcy, The Literary World, The Publishing Industry | Leave a Comment
What with promoting Mrs Darcy and so on, I haven’t done a lot of submitting stuff lately. But I sent a few things off the other day and I was very pleased to get a quick acceptance from Ink, Sweat and Tears for my poem Lost for Words. I’ll let you know when it appears.
What else? Had an unexpected sighting of Mrs Darcy the other day, courtesy of the lovely Sarah Salway (that’s Sarah-Salway-who-gets-cover-quotes-from-Neil-Gaiman-and-recently-shared-a-platform-with-William-Gibson, in case you were wondering). At a poetry reading the other day this chap was apparently enthusing about the book, saying that there were “lots of belly laughs”. I’ve no idea who he is, which makes it even better.
I’ve now added a 404 page to the Mrs Darcy website. Try going to a non-existent page like this one and see what happens. I should do something similar to this place, too, whilst I’m at it.
I’ve also restarted my Too Many CDs project – the one where I listen to every tenth CD in my collection and give my impressions. We’re now up to number 100, which happens to be the splendid “Remedy” by Basement Jaxx.
And finally, if you haven’t been keeping up with the increasingly bizarre and unpleasant Brit Writers Award story, this post – and the comments under it especially – will tell you everything you need to know. Wow. Just wow.
Oct
12
The New Writer Prose and Poetry Prizes
Filed Under Competitions, Performances | 5 Comments
Well then. I’m inordinately chuffed to be able to announce that I’m going to be judging the short stories this year for The New Writer. The closing date is November 30th, so that gives you plenty of time to write something utterly brilliant for me. Now I guess you may be wondering what kind of thing I’m looking for, but I’m afraid the massively unhelpful answer is that I won’t know until I see it.
But… I did once write a post for another occasion when I was looking for submissions and I think it may be time to trot that one out again. So… *drum roll* … here’s a repeat appearance for Swiss Toni’s Guide to Writing Short Stories. That should give you a bit of a clue as to what I’m looking for.
In other news, I had a fab time at Liars’ League last night – fantastic audience (wow, it’s grown since the last time I went), some wonderful stories and an absolutely spot on performance of my piece by Greg Page. I’ll post the video when it’s available.
Sep
1
Willesden Herald Giveaway Winner
Filed Under Competitions, Things I like | 4 Comments
It’s all go today. To coincide with the opening of entries for the Willesden Herald New Short Stories Competition, I hereby announce that the winner of the great anthology giveaway, out of no less than 15 entries, picked out of a hat at random by international celebrity cookery blogger Rachel Pinnock, is…
Drum roll, please
Is…
Keep drumming, goddamnit
Is…
Come on, come on
DAN PURDUE!
So step forward, Dan, and claim your prize. If you want to e-mail me your address, I’ll pass it on to Steve. Many thanks to everyone who took the trouble to join in. I may well do the same for Mrs Darcy in the next day or so, so watch this space…
May
9
The Scott Prize
Filed Under Competitions, Placings | 10 Comments
On Friday I noticed a tweet from Salt Publishing saying that the Crashaw and Scott prize winners would be announced on Monday, at which point I suddenly realised how desperately I wanted to be one of them. Up until then I was thinking “Well, I’ve got one book coming out this year anyway, so this one doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Turns out it did. I was on edge most of the weekend, I hardly slept last night and I was a complete wreck this morning. I kept checking the RSS feed to see if there were any new entries on the Salt blog and every time there was (and there were two false alarms: the Crashaw announcement and a piece about David Rose, who’s just got a new novel out) I hardly dared look.
And then this appeared. With my name in the right place, alongside Facebook/Twitter chum Andrea Ashworth and new Facebook chum Cassandra Parkin. I still can’t really believe it. I actually have TWO books coming out this year. A comic sci-fi romp and a book of pukka literary short stories. What an extraordinary year it’s turning out to be.
Apr
15
Ink, Sweat and Tears Again
Filed Under Acceptances, Competitions, The Literary World | 4 Comments
Whilst I was away on holiday, my Proxima label-mate Charles Christian handed over the editorship of Ink, Sweat and Tears to his deputy, Helen Ivory. IS&T published my first-ever (rather sweary) poem, “I Wish to Register a Complaint”, thus setting me off on a completely unexpected career side-path. So, for this alone, Charles is a Top Bloke. But (as I mentioned above) he is also a fellow Proxima author, which makes him beyond awesome.
Anyway, when I submitted a couple of new poems to Helen last week, I was more than a little disappointed not to receive a reply within a matter of minutes as per the style of the old regime. Then this morning, I saw this post on IS&T which explained why. D’oh: I really should have spotted that myself. I duly resubmitted and received a blink-of-an-eye acceptance for my poem “Conundrums”. So all is well with IS&T and long may it flourish. The piece in question will appear some time in May.
This acceptance went some way to assuaging my disappointment at ending up bottom of the class in Round Two of the Whittaker (after a decent showing in Round One, too). But in truth, it was a pretty lousy effort, and probably deserved its low score. Can’t say I’m looking forward to reading the judge’s comments though.
Finally, some really sad news: Jenny Hewitt of JBWB has died. I’ve entered their competitions a few times and they always seemed efficient and well-run. My condolences to her partner, Doug.
Apr
7
Club Eclectic: The STIRRED POeT 1.3
Filed Under Anthologies, Competitions, Publications | Leave a Comment
Another spiffy cover by the artist who goes by the enigmatic moniker Five Seventeen heralds the anthology from this year’s STIRRED POeT competition, which is now on sale here.
I made up for my no-show in last year’s anthology by sneaking two poems into this year’s, “A Lover’s Alphabet” and “The Longueurs of Après-Midi”. I’m particularly pleased with the first of these because it’s the first time I’ve managed to construct a technically correct sonnet.
As a taster, here are the first few lines:
“So: A is for the ARSEHOLE I once wed
and B is for the BASTARD you became.
Then C is for the CRAPPY lies,” she said,
“and D is for your DOUBLE-DEALING game.
Which gives a rough idea of what it’s all about. However, I’m afraid if you want to read the rest, you’re just going to have to buy the book. Go on, you know you want to.
Mar
11
The New Writer Poetry Prize and Other Stuff
Filed Under Acceptances, Competitions, Interviews, Placings, Publications | 2 Comments
I like The New Writer. Specifically I like their poetry prizes. Their fiction prize is a closed book to me, but last year I managed to be a finalist in both their poetry collection and single poetry competitions. This year I went one better and I was highly commended in the single poem category for my piece about the “Green Line” in Nicosia, “Cyprus Delight”.
So, as one of the top ten poems in the competition, “Cyprus Delight” will now receive the ultimate accolade of print publication. Which is all rather exciting.
I still find poetry completely baffling. I dabble in it (I hate that phrase, but it’s true) because I enjoy it and I like to think that my experiments in the discipline with choosing the right word and getting the rhythm right etc. inform my fiction writing. But despite clocking up a few moderate successes like this one, I still feel a total fraud because I read very little poetry – partly because there’s very little that I feel completely comfortable with, but mostly because I’m lazy and ignorant. Actually, I could probably do with some pointers as to who I should read, and any suggestions would be most welcome.
In other news, my interview with Vanessa Gebbie went live on Salt Publishing’s blog yesterday. I hope I managed to do her justice, despite me not having much of a clue about interviewing. It was fun to do, though.
And I had a very swift acceptance yesterday from Escape Velocity for my piece “Symbiosis”, a tender story about the love of a young girl for her medicinal parasitic tapeworm. This will appear in their forthcoming anthology.
Finally … just take a look at the cover for Murky Depths 16. And then take a look at the wonderful artwork for my story, “Teamwork”, by Caroline Parkinson. And then go and place your order …
Mar
1
The Scott Prize Shortlist
Filed Under Competitions, Placings | 8 Comments
Now this is quite mahoosively exciting. The shortlist for the Scott Prize was announced today and I am on it, with my putative collection “Dot(.), Dash(-)”. I’m joined on the list by nine others, including my VWC chum Julie Mayhew and Twitter acquaintance Andrea Ashworth. The final three are chosen in April, so there will be a certain amount of nail-biting between now and then.
Amazing how things change. When I submitted my manuscript for “Dot(.), Dash(-)” back in October, I had all but given up on finding a publisher for Mrs Darcy, so I’d shifted my focus back to short stories. The following month, Proxima picked up Mrs Darcy, so everything changed again. The other weekend at Get Writing, with Mrs Darcy safely in the can, I found myself pitching a long-cherished non-fiction project.
So what kind of writer am I? Which project do I really want to succeed?
Daft question. You might as well ask me which of my kids I prefer …
Feb
1
NYC Midnight Tweet Me a Story Top 25!
Filed Under Competitions, Stunts | Leave a Comment
Well, then. Out of around 1000 original entrants, I now appear to be in the top 25. Which means that I’m after your votes again (sorry about this). So I’d really appreciate it if you could go here, click where it says “Click”, select my story and then click on the “Confirm” button.
This is my story:
Professor the said, “surprise a was that, well.” Backwards run to began time, on machine the switched they when.
I know it’s a bit gimmicky, but there you go. Any way to make it stand out from the crowd 
Jan
28
NYC Midnight Tweet Me a Story – Surprise!
Filed Under Competitions, Stuff, Stunts | Leave a Comment
Yesterday morning I found out that I’d made it through to the final of “Tweet Me a Story” for the second year running. Many thanks to all of you out there who voted for me, as I ended up as being the “Audience Award” winner for my group (again for the second year running). There is a little voice in the back of my head that is telling me this was probably more to do with the power of social networking than any real merit, but I’m going to ignore that for the moment …
And last night at midnight the word for the final was distributed, and it was “surprise”. Which was a bit of an awkward one, because half the trick in these things is to find a less obvious interpretation of the prompt word and at first sight “surprise” doesn’t offer much scope for thinking outside the box. But I’m quite pleased with the three I came up with eventually – certainly more so than last year’s final, anyway. The results are announced on Monday.
Before that, Mrs P and I went to see The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in concert. Wonderful. Here they are in case you’ve never come across them before: