IN HIS OWN WORDS
From Patrickness.com:
Who are you?
I’m Patrick Ness, born at the stroke of midnight on the new millennium, suckled by wolves (well, a wolf and an open-minded Weimaraner), and schooled by Jesuit mermaids. I’m from America, live in England, and am a blending of both (with a firm genetic trunk of Norwegian. It’s why I’m tall and freckly. Skol!). I’ve had lots of jobs but won’t bore you with the usual wacky list, though I did teach creative writing at Oxford University for three years. Which wasn’t even remotely wacky. At all. Currently, I write books, but that’s probably why you’re here.
What have you written?
I’ve written six books: The Chaos Walking trilogy and A Monster Calls for young adults, plus a novel for adults called The Crash of Hennington and a short story collection for adults called Topics About Which I Know Nothing. More to come, more to come.
What prizes have you won?
Right, it’s horrible of me to even pretend that you’d actually ask that, so I apologise profusely. Nevertheless, people do actually occasionally want to know, so here’s the current list:
- The Knife of Never Letting Go won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and the James Tiptree Memorial Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.
- The Ask and the Answer won the Costa Children’s Book of the Year Prize and was also shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Booktrust Teenage Prize.
- Monsters of Men won the Carnegie Medal and was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Galaxy National Book Award.
- A Monster Calls won the Galaxy National Book Award and is currently (Jan 2012) shortlisted for the RedHouse Book Award.
Will there be a fourth Chaos Walking book?
Well, the trilogy ends exactly where I want it to in Monsters of Men; it’s an ending I’m really proud of. So I think that particular story is finished. I’m a never say never kind of writer, though, so who knows if there may be other stories in that world? I couldn’t say at the moment, but I’m not averse to the possibility. That’s not a promise, though! Books emerge mysteriously. I’m helpless to what comes.
Will there be a Chaos Walking movie?
I hope so! I’ve sold the film rights to Lionsgate Studios, who are currently making the film versions of The Hunger Games. Development is just starting, so fingers crossed, eh?
CHAOS WALKING SERIES
These are (hopefully) the final covers being published in June, that feature a mix of the adult covers and the most recent YA editions. They're so pretty! The Knife of Never Letting Go also includes a new prequel story called The New World.
A MONSTER CALLS
"Costa Award winner Patrick Ness spins a tale from the final idea of much-loved Carnegie Medal winner Siobhan Dowd, whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself. Darkly mischievous and painfully funny, A Monster Calls is an extraordinarily moving novel of coming to terms with loss from two of our finest writers for young adults."
This the the most beautifully illustrated book. It's moving, haunting and affecting. If you have a choice between which one to buy (which you totally will because we stock them both) we always recommend the black one. It's gorgeously written in itself but the illustrated edition is the whole package.
MORE THAN THIS
You're going to hear and see a lot about this books in our store over the last month. It's something we're championing and are really passionate about. If you've never read anything by Patrick Ness and don't want to start on a whole series then this is your book. His writing is in a league of its own and, well, we're going to shouting about it.
From two-time Carnegie Medal winner Patrick Ness comes an enthralling and provocative new novel chronicling the life - or perhaps afterlife - of a teen trapped in a crumbling, abandoned world. A boy called Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he is here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But the neighbourhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust and completely abandoned. What's going on? And why is it that whenever he closes his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonizing memories that seem more real than the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, that this might not be the hell he fears it to be, that there might be more than just this..
The paperback publishes in May.
Have you ever read anything by Patrick Ness? Comment your thoughts below.
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