Patrick Ness (born 17 October 1971 in Fort Belvoir, Virginia) is an American-British author, journalist and screenwriter, best known for young-adult fiction including the Chaos Walking trilogy (The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men) and A Monster Calls. He moved to London in 1999 and was naturalised as a British citizen in 2005. He is one of only two authors to win the Carnegie Medal in consecutive years, for Monsters of Men (2011) and A Monster Calls (2012).