Our events manager Chris Gordon chats with Patrick Ness about his highly anticipated new YA novel, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, which will be released next Thursday 27 August.

Special note: Five lucky people who pre-order The Rest of Us Just Live Here limited edition will also receive a copy of More Than This signed by Patrick Ness. Pre-order online by Tuesday 25 August to automatically go into the draw. Only the five winners will be notified.

Because I don’t want to ruin the story for anyone, I’m not going to ask about the plot of your latest novel The Rest of Us Just Live Here (which my 15-year-old son hid from me so he could read it first) but I love how it’s based in the struggles of regular life, of simply getting through the week, the day, the next step. We all need to hear about this sometimes. Were you purposely trying to be encouraging in this way?

I try not to be purposely anything, really, because you risk becoming preachy and who wants to read that? This book was more character-based; it felt to me like a story about a character who was going to keep trying until he got a break and understood some things, bittersweet yet hopeful things. Which just felt true to what teenage life is like – it’s so painfully hopeful.

There is always marginalised characters in your novels, thank goodness. It this because you reckon everyone needs a hero, or you think that anyone could be a hero?

Most of YA is about marginalised characters, if you think about it. That’s because, I think, the starting point of any teenager is to feel different and left out, even if you’re the popular kid. The real heroism is in realising that it’s human and that other people feel like it, too. Every teen feels marginalised. Didn’t you?

I feel like you take the typical narrative of YA fiction and turn it upside down so that we, the readers, are left with all things familiar in totally surreal surroundings. I imagine it’s pretty difficult to keep coming up with these extraordinarily original ideas?

I have no idea where ideas come from, which is terrifying. The only thing I consciously do is try to keep myself a little scared when writing. I don’t want anything to become too familiar or like something I’ve done before. It’s hard but it sure keeps you awake and paying attention to your writing. Which can only be a good thing. Makes each book seem impossible at the start, though, which is maybe less fun.

Most of your novels have made me cry and your work does not hide from death and loss. Does writing these stories make you sad?

I firmly believe that if you’re not feeling it when you’re writing (be it comedy, thrills, love, or sadness), your reader is never going to feel it. And it’s arrogant to ask them to if you don’t. So if I’m not feeling it when I write it, I know I’ve done it wrong and go back until I get it right.

Did you set out to write for teenagers?

Nope, it was a pleasant surprise! I had a story (The Knife of Never Letting Go) and it revealed itself to be for teens. I always say that my job at the point was just to go, ‘Great!’, and write on. Snobbery is death to a story (and a writer), and I don’t feel IN ANY WAY that my YA books are somehow ‘less’ than my adult ones. I put the same work, the same emotional investment into all of them. I love it, feels like a fantastic creative challenge.

When did you realise you could write?

I wrote stories in class when very young and often had them (to my horror) read out by teachers. It was the first time I realised I could write something and sometimes people might respond how I wanted them to. It’s an amazing feeling. I’m a terrible singer, so I figure this is only fair.

And because I’m a bookseller, I obviously have to ask the following…

Your favourite novel you’ve read this year? Probably either Craig Thompson’s Blankets or Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings.

What are you reading now? A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

What are reading next? No idea! I have so many books on my TBR shelves (something like 300) that I’ve given up trying to choose. I pick them randomly now, with a random number app . Gives me some cool surprises.