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.
Jul
14
Good Timin’
Filed Under Anthologies, Publications, Reviews, The Publishing Industry | 2 Comments
In the immortal words of Jimmy Jones, you need good timin’.
When I sent my entry in for the Scott Prize to Salt Publishing at the beginning of last October, I had no idea whatsoever that Salt were about to launch Proxima Books and even less idea that barely a month later I would be signing a contract for Proxima to publish Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens. By the time the Scott Prize announcement came around, the release date for Mrs Darcy was already set for September 1st which made things look a bit complicated, given that all three Scott Prize winners were due to be launched during National Short Story Week – November 7th to 13th.
Something had to give. So yesterday the decision was taken for publication of Dot Dash (my short story collection) to be put back to 2012. I’m obviously slightly disappointed about this, because my first love is short stories and I’m desperate to find out what the world thinks about this collection. But I can also see that from a marketing point of view, bringing two very different books from the same author out at almost the same time would be insane.
So 2011 is now going to be solely the year of Mrs Darcy, whilst 2012 is going to be the year of Dot Dash. Unless of course everyone suddenly starts clamouring for that sequel to Mrs Darcy, in which case life gets very complicated indeed. But in a good way.
Meanwhile, Scott Pack is reviewing stories from the 2010 Bristol Short Story Prize anthology, and today he’s given a four-star review to one of mine, “rZr and Napoleon”. Like the other story of mine that bagged a four-star review from him (he has such good taste), it will of course appear in Dot Dash in 2012. But if you want to read it in the meantime, I strongly recommend getting hold of a copy of that anthology – it really is very good indeed.
Jul
13
National Short Story Week Guest Editorship
Filed Under Publications, Rants, Stuff, The Literary World | Leave a Comment
Last week I was asked if I fancied being this month’s guest editor for the National Short Story Week web site and I must have hesitated for – ooh – at least a couple of seconds before saying yes. Anyway, the resulting piece is now up on the site – do go and have a look. It turns into a bit of a rant in the end, albeit a very polite one.
In other news, I’m on Google+ if you’re into that kind of thing. To be honest, I’m not madly excited about it at the moment. The “circles” concept strikes me as exactly the thing that a geek would come up with as being really cool, but I’m not sure I really see people making great use of it. Sure, in theory it enables you to post different stuff for different groups of people to see, but I have two problems with this.
Firstly, if a tech-savvy US senator can accidentally post a picture of his todger to his Twitter stream instead of a DM, then sure as hell other people are going to screw up which Google+ circle they’re posting their “look at me I’m so wasted LOL” pictures to. At least on FB and Twitter you know that everyone’s watching.
Secondly, I actually quite like the blurring that occurs in these places. You find out that people you’ve had one kind of interaction with have a whole other side to them and sometimes that’s very interesting. Sometimes it’s weird, too, but there you go. Ho hum. I’m probably just resisting change as usual. We’ll see.
Jun
26
Dagenham Rules, Henderson’s Variation
Filed Under Mrs Darcy, Publications | 2 Comments
… is now published. I’m not 100% sure what it’s about, but I think it has something to do with competitive relationships, trust, emasculation and The Games People Play. But maybe not.
In other news, Mrs Darcy now has her own page on the Salt website. And that is one deeply scary picture of the author, is it not?
May
26
Just remembered that I haven’t mentioned this one yet. “The Best of Every Day Fiction Three” is now out – another bumper anthology from the good people at EDF. This one’s got a couple of my pieces in it: “Hidden Shallows” and “The Colour of Criticism”. There are details about how to buy it here. So … um … buy it, please?
May
22
Escape Velocity Anthology
Filed Under Anthologies, Other people, Publications | 2 Comments
The Escape Velocity anthology has just been launched, containing works by loads of good people such as Cathy Edmunds, Paul Freeman, Rob Harkess, Geoff Nelder and Bec Zugor. And me, with “Symbiosis”, a jolly little tale of the love between a girl and her parasitic worm.
It’s available in paper and on Kindle over here if you’re in the UK and over here if you’re in the USA. Go buy it – it’s rather good. Also, “Symbiosis” came along too late to be included in my forthcoming collection (ha ha, always wanted to say that), so it’s worth buying for that alone 
“Symbiosis” was originally a much more straightforward tale, but acquired an extra level of weirdness on the suggestion of my VWC chum Toby Frost – which is as good an opportunity as any to point you in the direction of the new audio version of “Space Captain Smith”. Anyone who’s read the trilogy will need no further prompting – and if you haven’t already read the books, why on earth not?
So, two plugs for the price of one today.
May
18
… appeared on Ink, Sweat and Tears yesterday. I think they are fairly self-explanatory. At least I hope they are. I don’t go in for terribly deep stuff when it comes to poetry, and these are definitely floating around in the shallow end of the pool.
May
17
100 Stories for Queensland Chart Rush!
Filed Under Anthologies, Publications | 2 Comments
Remember the “100 Stories for Queensland” charity anthology? Well, it’s now out, and there’s a “chart rush” campaign on today. What it means is that we’re trying to get as many people as possible to buy it at once so that it gets into the top 10, thus garnering more exposure.
At the time of writing, the paperback is currently sitting at #2 in short stories and #3 in anthologies. Woo hoo! But that’s not enough! We want it to be #1! There’s some upstart called G K Chesterton who’s currently there in the short stories and some nonentity called Conan Doyle in the anthologies, but they’re bound to be rubbish and we’re far more deserving.
In case you were wondering, I’m in there with “The Wrong Bots”, a classy little piece about space pirates encountering a consignment of sexbots. Now you really want to read that one, don’t you? Bet Father Brown and Sherlock Holmes never had any adventures with sexbots.
You have clicked, haven’t you?
Normal service will be resumed one of these days. In the meantime, but only after you’ve clicked and bought the anthology, you can read a feature on me in the latest edition of Slingink All Shorts, available here. And in case Oscar’s wondering why I haven’t yet replied to his generous Versatile Blogger Award, I can offer no excuses, apart from the fact that I’m doing one of my occasional attempts to imitate a blue-arsed fly. Not a pretty sight, frankly.
Apr
26
The Voices, the Voices!
Filed Under Acceptances, Anthologies, Performances, Publications | Leave a Comment
I’ve been having a play with recording myself reading stuff. My initial motivation for doing this was the fact that Eclectic Flash have a “Voices” section on their site and I thought it might be fun (and a bit of a challenge) to record myself reading “The Language of Angels”, which they published in their very first edition. Here it is anyway – see what you think.
Having done that, I wondered about recording other things and I remembered that Every Day Fiction have an occasional podcast, so I went through the pieces I’d done for them to see which ones might work, given my frankly rather limited range as a vocal artiste. I ended up choosing the very first piece of mine that they published, “Cock Up”, which duly went live yesterday. I’m still not entirely sure whether that was an entirely appropriate choice for Easter Monday, but there you go. At least there’s no French in it.
In other news, a Twitter haiku of mine has been selected for 7×20′s first anthology, and my very wonderful publishers, Proxima, have started a blog – make sure you add that one to your list.
Apr
11
Teamwork
Filed Under Publications | 4 Comments
I think I can safely say that issue #16 of Murky Depths, which is out now, has the most arresting cover of any publication containing my work.
*Pauses to wipe steam off glasses*
Anyway, I am dead chuffed to be in there, because Murky Depths was, like they say on the site, judged to be the best magazine/periodical in the 2010 British Fantasy Awards, which must be a good thing.
My story, Teamwork, started life as an entry in the 2008-9 Slingink Eurofiction competition, where it was inspired by the prompt “Write a story set in three different places”. It ended up as an existential science fiction thriller, and it’s one of the most intricately plotted things I’ve ever written. Even the names of the characters are highly significant. The illustrations to go with it, by Caroline Parkinson, are first rate too.
So all in all, I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy. Can you?
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.