Author David Mitchell is a good sport. When an interview failed to record due to technological incompetence on the reporter’s part, Mr. Mitchell had a good laugh about it at the reporter’s expense, promising not to bring it up even as he brought it up during a second interview a week later.

One of the most noticeable things about Mr. Mitchell is his laugh — an infectious, deeply felt, even youthful inhale and exhale that sounds suspiciously like joy. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a writer who many believe can legitimately lay claim to being one of the best novelists in the world, has a wicked sense of humor and likes to laugh.

The 46-year-old author of such contemporary classics as “Ghostwritten” (1999), “The Bone Clocks” (2014) and “Cloud Atlas” (2004) will be the featured author at the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures Literary Evenings, Monday Night Lectures Series at the Carnegie Music Hall Monday, where he will read selections from his latest novel, “Slade House,” and participate in a Q&A session. The event, sponsored by Carnegie Library and the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series, will mark Mr. Mitchell’s first visit to Pittsburgh.

Mr. Mitchell writes thematically ambitious, but surprisingly easy-to-read novels that playfully subvert conventional chronology without casting it aside. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of years can rush past readers helplessly absorbed in Mr. Mitchell’s very strange, yet oddly familiar worlds. Mr. Mitchell is no respecter of genres. He’s as likely to craft a novel that can be loosely described as science fiction as he is a ghost story or a historical drama. He refuses to respect what he calls the false binary between high and low art that fascinates literary critics to the detriment of great literature.

Many readers and critics have noticed the interrelated nature of Mr. Mitchell’s literary universe. It isn’t unusual for a character from previous books to make a cameo later. Referring to his characters as “hyperlinks between the books,” Mr. Mitchell likes the fact that his novels are all set in the same universe with “occasional visitors with occasionally shared locations often separated by time.”

“Re-employing characters brings an emotional charge with them, potentially magnetizing the new book,” Mr. Mitchell said, though he is quick to add that he’s “not interested in sequels and prequels.”

“Each book is another chapter in a kind of an uber book I’ll keep writing, probably as long as I live,” said Mr. Mitchell, who has written seven novels since 1999. “However each book is also quite strictly and stringently an independent [book] in its own light, and is theoretically enjoyable by someone who has never read a word of [my writing] before, and will never read another word after.

“They have to be stand-alone, but once that box is ticked, then I can have fun fitting [previous characters] in, slotting them in, building in rich and complex characters from past and future books as well.”

Fortunately for his fans and many admirers, Mr. Mitchell enjoys talking about the craft of writing and what goes into the construction of such magisterial works as “Cloud Atlas,” “The Bone Clocks” and “Slade House,” the slimmest novel of his oeuvre.

“It took four years to write ‘The Bone Clocks,’ ” he said. “Two-and-a-half years to gather the [material] and go long. You have to let yourself go long. That’s very important. And maybe 18 months to two years to build up the finished book.

“I write piece by piece by piece,” he added. “I write in chunks.”

Mr. Mitchell said that whenever he stops, it is because he doesn’t know the characters well enough.

“I never had writer’s block in the way that it’s talked about more commonly,” he said. “I can’t remember [who said this], but writer’s block is nature’s way of telling you that you aren’t a writer, which is terribly rude and can’t be universally applicable.

“There’s no crime in leapfrogging a scene that’s giving you trouble,” Mr. Mitchell said. “Write the one after it to find out what was giving you trouble.”

Mr. Mitchell said that it helps to have the characters write letters to him about themselves and the situation they’re in so he can know them well enough to resolve whatever the problem is.

“That breaks the logjam and it makes it flow again,” he said.

“The trick is to get something down on the page even if it’s rubbish,” he said. “It’s OK for the first draft, the first manuscript, to be rubbish. You can’t improve nothing. You can improve rubbish and keep improving it.”

Asked what piece of advice he would give to writers intimidated by the intricacy and beauty of fully realized work by published authors like himself, Mr. Mitchell was blunt.

“Please don’t despair,” he said. “It’s not magic. Art can be learned. It’s not enough to be talented. Loads of people are talented who don’t do that much with their skill set, or their lives. The most important word is discipline. If you have talent and discipline, good things will happen.”

While acknowledging that the Internet is a blessing to our lives, he also considers it a distraction from writing. “You have to have a non-Internet laptop. Make a solemn vow and stick to it by making the superstitious ritual that if you get Internet access, something awful will happen,” he said. “It works for me.”

Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.

First Published: November 1, 2015, 4:00 a.m.