“Forget
market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own
experience, those are the stories of mine people have wanted to read.” – Patrick Ness
Born at
Fort Belvoir, VA on Oct. 17, 1971 Ness is best known for his books for young
adults, including the Chaos Walking trilogy and Monsters of Men and
A Monster Calls, back-to-back winners of the prestigious Carnegie Medal
from the Association of British Librarians.
The author of
14 novels and many short stories, he grew up in several different U.S. states,
moving around as a member of an Army family.
After earning a degree from the University of Southern California, he relocated to London and now holds dual U.S.-British citizenship.
A
Monster Calls, while a
massive bestseller for Ness, was first an idea from fellow author
Siobhan Dowd. Gravely ill, she had
developed it and asked Ness to do the writing and artist Jim Kay to illustrate
it. The resulting book not only won the
Carnegie for Ness but also the Kate Greenaway Medal for Kay’s art – the first
time one novel has won both major awards.
While Ness’s
books are primarily for Young Adults, he’s built a large support group of adult
readers, too, and said YA fiction is popular with adults because many adults “hunger
for narrative just as badly as teenagers do.”
Ness’s most recent books are Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody: The Hat
of Great Importance (2025) and the first in a new planned trilogy Piper
at the Gates of Dusk (out this past spring).
“A book cannot apologize for what people may
think it should be,” Ness said. “It has
to be authoritative. That's what I want as a reader - I want to be confident
that the book will do its job.”
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