American writer Patrick Ness was BOTD in 1971. Born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia to a military family, he lived in Hawaii and Washington state before studying at the University of Southern California. He moved to London in 1999, publishing a novel and short story collection before moving to young adult fiction. His 2008 debut young adult novel The Knife of Never Letting Go won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, and was followed by two successful sequels. He is best known for his phenomenally successful novels Monsters of Men and A Monster Calls, which won the Carnegie Medal in successive years. Ness has also adapted A Monster Calls for the stage and wrote the screenplay for the 2016 live-action film. His other works include the young adult novels More Than This and The Rest of Us Just Live Here, and the adult novel The Crane Wife. He created and directed the 2016 science fiction series Class, a short-lived spin-off of the British TV series Doctor Who. Openly gay, Ness lives in Los Angeles with his husband Nick Coveney.