Patrick Ness FRSL
Ness in 2017
Born	(1971-10-17)17 October 1971 (age 53) Fort Belvoir,Virginia, U.S.
Occupation	Author writer producer
Nationality	American-British
Alma mater	University of Southern California
Genre	Young adult
Spouse	Unknown ​ ​ (m. 2013, divorced)​ [1] Nick Coveney ​ (m. 2022)​ [2]

Patrick NessFRSL (born 17 October 1971) is an American-British author, journalist, lecturer, and screenwriter. Born in the United States, Ness moved to London and holds dual citizenship. He is best known for hisbooks for young adults, including theChaos Walking (2008–2010) trilogy andA Monster Calls (2011).

Ness won the annualCarnegie Medal in 2011 and in 2012, forMonsters of Men andA Monster Calls.^{[3][4][5][6][a]}He is one of seven writers to win two Medals, and the second to win consecutively.

He wrote the screenplay of the2016 film adaptation ofA Monster Calls, and was the creator and writer of theDoctor Who spin-off seriesClass.

Ness was born near theFort Belvoir Army base, nearAlexandria, Virginia, where his father was a Sergeant in theUS Army. They moved to Hawaii, where he lived until he was six, then spent the next ten years inWashington, before moving toLos Angeles. Ness studiedEnglish Literature at theUniversity of Southern California.

After graduating, he worked as corporate writer for a cable company. He published his first story inGenre in 1997 and was working on his first novel when he moved to London in 1999.

Ness'sfirst novel,The Crash of Hennington, was published in 2003,^[7] and was followed by hisshort story collection,Topics About Which I Know Nothing, in 2004.^[8]

Ness's firstyoung adult novel wasThe Knife of Never Letting Go. It won theGuardian Children's Fiction Prize in 2008.^[9][10]The book was followed byThe Ask and the Answer, andMonsters of Men. Together, the three books make up theChaos Walking trilogy. Ness has also written three short stories set in theChaos Walking universe; the prequels "The New World" and "The Wide, Wide Sea", and "Snowscape", which is set after the events ofMonsters of Men. The short stories are available as free-to-downloadebooks,^[11] and have been included in the 2013 UK print editions of the novels.^[12]

A Monster Calls originated with the Irish writer,Siobhan Dowd, who had been diagnosed with cancer and was unable to complete the story before she died in 2007. Dowd and Ness shared an editor at Walker, Denise Johnstone-Burt, and after Dowd's death, Walker arranged for Ness to complete the story from her notes. Ness says his only guideline was to write a book he thought Dowd would have liked. Jim Kay was hired to illustrate the book, and the two completed the book without meeting. Ness won the Carnegie and Kay won the companionKate Greenaway Medal, the first time one book has won both medals.^[13][14]

Ness was the author ofTip of the Tongue, an e-short featuring theFifth Doctor andNyssa as part Puffin's elevenDoctor Who e-shorts in honour of the show's 50th anniversary, released on 23 May 2013.^[15][16]

His fourth young adult novel,More Than This, was published on 5 September 2013.^[17] It later made theCarnegie Medal shortlist of 2015.^[18]

The Crane Wife, Ness's third novel for adults, was published on 30 December 2014.

In 2014, Ness delivered the keynote speech at theChildren's and Young Adult Program of theBerlin International Literature Festival.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here was published 25 August 2015 in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, and 5 October 2015 in Canada and the United States.

On 1 October 2015, theBBC announced that Ness would be writing aDoctor Who spin-off entitledClass.^[19] The resulting eight-part series aired on BBC Three's online channel toward the end of 2016. The BBC cancelledClass after one series.

Release, was published on 4 May 2017, described by Ness as a "private and intense book" with more personal inspiration than any before it.^[20]

In June 2021, Ness was said to be preparing a prequel script to the Napoleonic sea adventure movieMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World, based on the works ofPatrick O'Brian.^[21]

Ness was naturalised as a British citizen in 2005. He entered into a civil partnership with his partner in 2006, less than two months after theCivil Partnership Act came into force.^[22] In February 2023, Patrick disclosed on Instagram that he had married Nick Coveney inLas Vegas in October 2022. He also stated that within the previous "4 or 5 years" he had gotten divorced.^[2]

Ness taught creative writing at theUniversity of Oxford and has written and reviewed forThe Daily Telegraph,The Times Literary Supplement,The Sunday Telegraph andThe Guardian. He has been a Fellow of theRoyal Literary Fund, and was the first Writer in Residence forBookTrust.^[23]

In 2023, Ness was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature.^[24]

This list isincomplete; you can help byadding missing items.(April 2024)

The Rest of Us Just Live Here received many awards, including six starred reviews and theKirkus Best Book of the Year.^[33]

• —— (2003).The Crash of Hennington.
• —— (2013).The Crane Wife (hardcover ed.).Canongate Books. pp. 1–311.ISBN 978-0857868718.

1. The Knife of Never Letting Go (2008)
2. The Ask and the Answer (2009)
3. Monsters of Men (2010)

• Short stories

  1.5. "The New World" (2009)

  2.5. "The Wide, Wide Sea" (2013)

  3.5. "Snowscape" (2013)

1. Piper at the Gates of Dusk (Spring 2026)

• —— (2011).A Monster Calls (paperback 1st ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–215.ISBN 978-1406334906.
• —— (2013).More Than This (hardcover ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–480.ISBN 978-1406331158.
• —— (2015).The Rest of Us Just Live Here (hardcover 1st ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–348.ISBN 978-1406331165.
• —— (2017).Release (paperback 1st ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–287.ISBN 978-1406377279. (2017)
• —— (2018).And the Ocean Was Our Sky (hardcover 1st ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–160.ISBN 978-1406383560.
• —— (2020).Burn (hardcover 1st ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–383.ISBN 978-1406375503.
• —— (2023).Different for Boys (Hardcover ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–104.ISBN 978-1536228892.
• —— (2024).Chronicles of a Lizard (Hardcover ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–208.ISBN 978-1536235937.
• —— (2025).Chronicles of a Lizard: The Hat of Great Importance (Hardcover ed.).Walker Books. pp. 1–208.ISBN 978-1536241266.

• "Different for Boys", collected inLosing it (2010)^[34]
• "Doctor Who: Tip of the Tongue" (2013), collected inThirteen Doctors, 13 Stories (2019)
• "This Whole Demoing Thing", collected inMonstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales, ed.Kelly Link andGavin J. Grant (2014)

• Topics About Which I Know Nothing (2004), collection of 11 short stories:

  "Implied Violence", "The Way All Trends Do", "Ponce de Leon is a Retired Married Couple From Toronto", "Jesus' Elbows and Other Christian Urban Myths", "Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?", "Sydney is a City of Jaywalkers", "2,115 Opportunities", "The Motivations of Sally Rae Wentworth, Amazon", "The Seventh International Military War Games Dance Committee Quadrennial Competition and Jamboree", "The Gifted", "Now That You've Died"

• Official website
• Patrick Ness atBritish Council: Literature
• Patrick Ness at theInternet Speculative Fiction Database
• Patrick Ness atLibrary of Congress, with 8 library catalogue records
• The Knife Of Never Letting Go, chapter one
• Opening speech by Ness at the children and youth program of the International Literature Festival Berlin

• 1971 births
• 21st-century American male writers
• 21st-century American novelists
• 21st-century American screenwriters
• 21st-century American short story writers
• 21st-century British novelists
• 21st-century British screenwriters
• 21st-century British short story writers
• Academics of the University of Oxford
• American children's writers
• American emigrants to England
• American gay writers
• American LGBTQ journalists
• American LGBTQ novelists
• American male novelists
• British journalists
• British LGBTQ journalists
• British LGBTQ writers
• Carnegie Medal in Literature winners
• Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
• Guardian Children's Fiction Prize winners
• LGBTQ people from Virginia
• Living people
• Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
• Novelists from Virginia
• People from Fairfax County, Virginia
• People from Fort Belvoir, Virginia
• Screenwriters from Virginia
• University of Southern California alumni
• Writers of young adult science fiction

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• EngvarB from June 2017
• Use dmy dates from June 2017
• Incomplete lists from April 2024
• Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia