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.
Apr
30
JBWB Spring Competition
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My name is Jonathan Pinnock and I am a poet. There, I’ve said it. Anyone who has a problem with this can leave the room now (apart from my family, who I’ll make an exception for – even though they do indeed find it acutely embarrassing). I’ve been struggling against this for a while, ever since I stumbled into writing poetry again a couple of years or so ago, partly because it’s not the kind of thing that a grown-up bloke does and partly because my complete lack of training makes me feel like a complete amateur. (If any of this sounds familiar, you’ve obviously been reading Stephen Fry’s “The Ode Less Travelled”, where he makes the exact same points, albeit far more eloquently than me.)
However, I don’t feel that I can keep up the pretence of being a non-poet any longer, now that I have apparently won first prize in the JBWB Spring competition with my piece “Moving On”. I originally wrote this for the final round of last year’s Whittaker competition in a kind of elegaic mood and I think it’s one of my favourite poems – even though the Whittaker judges didn’t care for it that much (along with the judges for a couple of other competitions, in fact). See what you think, anyway. Here it is.
As it happens, I also clocked up a shortlisting in the short story section of the same competition. This was for a piece that used to be called “A New Man”, which I originally wrote for a VWC internal competition and then adapted for one of the rounds of the last Eurofiction but two. Since then I’ve sent it all over the place and hardly got a sniff, apart from a near-miss at Liars’ League. But before I sent it off to JBWB I had an inspiration, and I decided to make the title a bit more interesting. So that’s how it came to be called “How I Became a New Man and What Good It Did Me”. Never underestimate the power of a title, eh? Here it is. (Incidentally, I think that means that I’ve now placed nine out of the ten piece that I did for my first-ever Eurofiction competition.)
One final thought about poetry. One of the many things I saw whilst I was in India that made me fall in love with the place was an advert for the Commonwealth Games to be held there later on this year. What I loved was that one of the celebs who was giving his endorsement was described as a screenwriter, lyricist and poet. Can you imagine that ever happening in the UK? What was it Mahatma Gandhi said when asked what he thought about Western culture? That it would be a good idea?
Mar
23
I had an interesting little double whammy in this competition this year, managing to be a finalist (but no further) in both the poetry collection and single poem categories. If I were perfectly honest, I’d probably be quite happy to trade one of them for something a bit closer to a prize, but I’m still quite chuffed – especially about the collection, because I’ve never tried putting together anything like that before (even if it was only ten poems). Oddly, I have no idea which poem it was that made the final, because I entered two, and they don’t identify the poems by name. However, I do know that the collection was called “Love and Loss and Other Important Stuff”.
Meanwhile, the third annual Whittaker Prize has just started: nine gruelling rounds over eighteen weeks, although this year I’m only entering for the poetry. I might have gone in for the fiction as well, having somehow managed to be runner-up last year, but the first round coincided exactly with my holiday. I reckoned that I might just get away with writing a quick poem, but that Mrs P would probably have objected if I’d spent my time away writing stories …
Dec
2
Last night I received a nice e-mail from Southport Writers’ Circle to tell me that my rather odd piece, “The Last Words of Emanuel Prettyjohn” had been commended in this year’s short story competition. I’m particularly pleased about this, as it is one of my oddest stories, but also one of my favourites, and it’s taken quite a few attempts to find someone out there who likes it.
Nov
3
The near-misses are coming thick and fast. I found out today that my poem about Lizzie Siddal, “Imitation of a Suicide”, was Highly Commended in the Hastings International Poetry Competition. This is probably my most complex poem to date, so I’m especially pleased that it’s (almost) hit the spot. The letter also said that ‘your work is worthy of consideration for “FIRST TIME MAGAZINE” should you wish to submit your poetry’. So I have 
Nov
1
Global Short Story Competition
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Here’s another of those “persistence pays off” stories. Sort of. I’ve been entering the monthly Global Short Story competition on and off ever since it started, with absolutely nothing to show for my entry fees. I’d actually got to the point where I’d decided that they just didn’t like me there, but in September I thought I’d have just one more go, so I sent them my curious tale of obsessive love, “The Magnolia Bedroom”. That particular story is going to be in this year’s Whittaker Prize anthology, in fact, but I thought it might be nice to give it a public airing before then. And I found out today that it was shortlisted. So I’m pleased to have finally broken my duck there, even if I’m still way down on entry fees …
Oct
31
JBWB Autumn Competition
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I just found out that I’ve got a “Highly Commended” in each category of this quarter’s JBWB competition. The fiction one is for my not quite ghost story “Unquiet”, and the poetry one is for “The Orange Girl and the Philosopher”. Slightly bittersweet feeling: I know I should be really pleased about this, but on the other hand, I’d quite happily swap one of them for an upgrade to the other one. Ach, I’m being greedy.
Oct
17
City of Derby in Pictures
Filed Under Competitions, Placings | 1 Comment
Not entirely sure whether this is a good idea or not, but here we go …
Now what was that story about ...
Think ... think ...
Phew. I think I got away with it ...
The most important bit
Oct
12
City of Derby Writing Competition 2009
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Weird business going in for short story competitions. On the one hand, there are some that I regularly enter where I’ve never had a sniff of the longlist, let alone a prize. And on the other hand, there’s City of Derby. Last year, when it was judged by Alex Keegan, I came joint second. This year, when it was judged by Sara Maitland, I came third. To say that I’m gobsmacked is something of an understatement.
Anyway, Mrs P, daughter P and I went to Derby on Friday for the award ceremony and a good time was had by all. Sara Maitland was an outspoken and generous judge with an obvious passion for the short story form. Last year we didn’t get to read any of our work, so I was a little surprised to be asked to read an extract and talk about it. I usually quite like reading my stuff out, but I think I rambled a bit this time. Actually, I rambled a lot. But the audience laughed once or twice, and on at least one occasion in the right place. And the winning story, Kite, by Gaby Pritchard, was very very good indeed.
I am also now in the possession of a signed copy of Sara Maitland’s book “Far North and other Dark Tales” with the word “CONGRATULATIONS” all over it. Which is worth more than any cheque really. I’ve only had time to read the first couple of stories in it and they are rather wonderful. Looking forward to reading more of her stuff.
Here’s the link to the winning stories. Obviously I’d like you to take a look at mine, but have a peek at the others as well. Especially the winner. It is quite special.
Sep
18
Woo Tiddley Hoo!
Filed Under Competitions, Placings | 4 Comments
Here’s a tip that I offer for free. If you’re getting twitchy about rejections, competition failures and the like, write a maudlin blog post about all the bad things that have happened lately and how no-one likes your stuff any more. Within 24 hours you will receive an e-mail telling you that you’ve won one of the prizes in a competition. It’s not guaranteed of course, but it’s certainly worth a try.
After all, it just worked for me. More in due course …
Jul
21
Bournemouth Short Story Competition
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Over the last few weeks I’ve been nervously checking the website for the inaugural Bournemouth Short Story Competition (not to be confused with the Bournemouth Literary Festival competition, where I once had some success with erotica, God help me), watching for the results. Then last week the following rather disturbing notice appeared:
Due to the fantastic number of entries received, reading the short stories has taken longer than expected. Winners will be announced at the end of July.
So that’s me out, I thought. But I was wrong, because this morning I received an e-mail to tell me that my piece “The Problem with Pork” had picked up one of the runner-up prizes of £25, plus publication in the associated anthology. Woo hoo!
This is actually round about the second or third story that I ever wrote, back in the early 90′s, and (under its original name of “Meat”) it gave me my first-ever brush with success when it was highly commended in the 1993 Ian St James Awards (remember them?). At the time, I thought that anything short of a prize was a complete failure, so I didn’t take the message of encouragement from this that I really should have done, and not long afterwards I pretty much gave up writing short stories.
When I started writing fiction again, it was once more one of my earliest successes, getting longlisted in the 2007 Fish competition, and it’s really nice to see it finally winning something and getting published into the bargain. Especially as it’s not to everyone’s taste: I once submitted it to Whittaker judge Geoff Nelder‘s magazine, Escape Velocity, and he absolutely hated it. But, then again, the piece does centre around eating meat, and he is a vegan (what was I thinking of?). And, despite this, he did very kindly offer some helpful advice on the writing aspects which I used in the final edit before entering it for this particular competition.