Patrick Ness's Blog, page 35

Monsters of Men is (mostly) here!

Yes, I know, official release date is on Monday, but Monsters of Men is pretty much on sale now, isn't it?  All the UK online sites are selling it now, and I was in Waterstones, Blackwells and Foyles in London yesterday and they all had lots of copies of it.  Foyles actually had a whole wall dedicated to the trilogy!  Nifty!

So if it's not already in your local bookstore, it will be very, very soon.  Which is great, I've been very excited to have people read it, so let me know what you think! ...

Edinburgh Festival, Hay Festival, Ireland, and Monsters of Men

More Festival news!  I'll be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Sunday and Monday, 22-23 August.  One will be a public event about Monsters of Men, and the other will be a Schools Programme event (in the big hall!) with the very excellent Keith Gray, talking about Losing It, a new anthology we've both written new stories for (not out 'til July, but I'll definitely be talking about it in the weeks to come). 

Booking for the public programme isn't until the end of June...

The Ask and the Answer on the Carnegie shortlist!

In excellent news, The Ask and the Answer has been shortlisted for the extremely prestigious Carnegie Medal.  It's a hell of a shortlist, too, with books like Marcus Sedgwick's Revolver and Terry Pratchett's Nation on it.  Brilliant company.

Quick hello to the new commenters: Raquel, Judith, Megan (stay tuned), and Louis (and Cora).

But also just to say that the very best thing about the Carnegie Medal is its brilliant Shadowing Scheme, where schools around the country read the entire...

I'm coming to Dublin!

Yes, I am, one of my very favourite cities.  Only a flying tour this time, I'm afraid, but I'm going to be appearing at Eason Bookshop on O'Connell Street on Thursday, 13 May from 6-9pm.  I'll be appearing with Sarah Rees Brennan, so a two-for-one.

It's ticketed, and the way Eason's seems to do it is by entering into a draw here.  Or you probably also give the store a call for more details (01 858 3800).  It'd be great to see you there!  I'm sorry it's not the rest of Ireland just yet, but...

Two weeks to go

So the activity continues in the build-up for the launch of Monsters of Men (3 May in the UK, Ireland and Australia, 12 May in New Zealand, 28 Sept in the US).  I went to a secret warehouse location today to sign an enormous pile of Monsters hardcovers, so keep an eye out for those.  They look awesome, by the way.

I've also got editions of The Knife of Never Letting Go coming out very soon in Swedish and Korean, with Hebrew soon to follow, to join the Turkish version I mentioned earlier in...

The Knife of Never Letting Go in Turkish!

Just a quick note to say that The Knife of Never Letting Go has now been published in Turkey (and in Turkish, obviously).  They're calling it Umut Bicagi, which means "Knife of Hope", I believe.  If you're Turkish, very happy to be corrected on that.  And if you're in Istanbul or Ankara, keep an eye out!

And greetings to all the new commenters:  LaylaViolet (yes, I'm writing, writing, writing), Maddy, Veronica (it is indeed the same robot), Nathan, Nick, Madison, and Eli (your English is...

Waterstones Books Quarterly Magazine (and a pretty cool photo)

I mentioned yesterday that Waterstones Books Quarterly magazine had the first review of Monsters of Men. 

Well!  Now thewhole magazine itself is out in Waterstone's stores, and there's a big ol' feature article on me in it and a pretty cool photo stretched across a couple pages.  It's the issue with the brilliant David Mitchell on the cover, and I'm on page 88 (with the review of Monsters on page 65).  Check it out if you're Waterstone's bound.

And a quick hello to the only new commenter...

Events for May/June

I'd been holding off on a new entry to announce a couple of events in May and June, but it looks like most of those are still being finalised.  So stay tuned.

I can say, in a general way, that I look to be doing a couple of events at the Hay Festival on the 4th and 5th of June.  And the rest...  Well, again, stay tuned.  In the meantime, I'm busy writing a new book and finalising things for the big of launch of Monsters of Men, which as I said is also on special offer on waterstones.com as...

I'm back

Hey, all, I've finally returned from south of the equator, where I had a terrific, terrific time, meeting (literally) thousands of people over (not literally) a million events.  Seeing so many new places, too.  Excellent time.

And, yes, there's more to come!  Monsters of Men is officially released on 3 May in the UK (1 May in Australia, so a two-day bonus there!).  Waterstones.com has a special pre-order for £5 off and Amazon.co.uk has a special where you can order all three books for...

Big announcement: The book that will follow Monsters of Men

Very, very quickly, as I'm actually still on holiday, but just to say that my publishers, Walker Books, are announcing today that the book that will follow Monsters of Men (released May 3 in the UK) will be something a little different, but still pretty damn cool. 

I'll be taking the preliminary pages from the final project of the brilliant 2009 Carnegie Medal Winner Siobhan Dowd -  before she died (far too young) of breast cancer - and I'll be weaving a new novel from them. 

Just wait 'til y...