George Raymond Richard Martin[1] (born George Raymond Martin; September 20, 1948),[2] also

known as GRRM,[3] is an American novelist and short story writer, screenwriter, and television

producer. He writes the series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted into
the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011–2019).
In 2005, Lev Grossman of Time called Martin "the American Tolkien",[4] and in 2011, he was included
on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.[5][6]

Contents

 1Early life
 2Teaching
 3Writing career
o 3.1A Song of Ice and Fire
o 3.2HBO adaptation
o 3.3Themes
 4Relationship with fans
o 4.1Blog
o 4.2Conventions
o 4.3Fan club
o 4.4Criticism
o 4.5Fan fiction
 5Personal life
 6Philanthropy
 7Politics
 8Awards
o 8.1Nominations
 9Bibliography
o 9.1Editor
 9.1.1Wild Cards series editor (also contributor to many volumes)
 9.1.2Cross-genre anthologies edited (with Gardner Dozois)
 10Filmography
o 10.1Film
o 10.2Television
o 10.3Video games
 11References
 12External links

Early life[edit]
George Raymond Martin (he adopted the confirmation name Richard at 13 years old)[2] was born on
September 20, 1948,[7] in Bayonne, New Jersey,[8] the son of longshoreman Raymond Collins Martin
and Margaret Brady Martin. On his mother's side his family used to be wealthy, and owned a
successful construction business, but they lost it all in the Great Depression, something Martin was
reminded about every day when he passed what used to be his family's dock and house. It made
him feel that even if they were poor, they came from greatness that had been taken away from them.
[9]
 He has two younger sisters, Darleen and Janet. His mother was of half Irish ancestry.[10] He also
acknowledges French, English, Welsh and German roots,[11] which were confirmed on the television
series Finding Your Roots. However, while he also believed he was a quarter Italian because of who
he was told was his paternal grandfather, a DNA test on the show confirmed his Irish and other
ancestries but excluded any Italian ancestry, showing instead he is approximately a
quarter Ashkenazi Jewish.[12]
The family first lived in a house on Broadway, belonging to Martin's great-grandmother. In 1953, they
moved to a federal housing project near the Bayonne docks.[10] During Martin's childhood, his world
consisted predominantly of "First Street to Fifth Street", between his grade school and his home; this
limited world made him want to travel and experience other places, but the only way of doing so was
through his imagination, and he became a voracious reader.[13] Martin began writing and selling
monster stories for pennies to other neighborhood children, dramatic readings included. He also
wrote stories about a mythical kingdom populated by his pet turtles; the turtles died frequently in
their toy castle, so he decided they were killing each other off in "sinister plots".[14] Martin had a habit
of starting "endless stories" that he never completed, as they didn't turn out as great as word on
paper as he had imagined them in his head.[15]
Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and later Marist High School. While there he became
an avid comic book fan, developing a strong interest in the superheroes being published by Marvel
Comics,[16] and later credited Stan Lee for being one of his greatest literary influences; "Maybe Stan
Lee is the greatest literary influence on me, even more than Shakespeare or Tolkien."[17] A letter
Martin wrote to the editor of Fantastic Four was printed in issue No. 20 (November 1963); it was the
first of many sent, e.g., Fantastic Four #32, #34, and others. Fans who read his letters wrote him
letters in turn, and through such contacts, Martin joined the fledgling comics fandom of the era,
writing fiction for various fanzines;[18] he bought the first ticket to the world's first Comic-Con, held in
New York in 1964.[19][20] In 1965, Martin won comic fandom's Alley Award for Best Fan Fiction for his
prose superhero story "Powerman vs. The Blue Barrier".[21]
In 1970, Martin earned a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of
Journalism in Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude; he went on to complete his M.S. in
Journalism in 1971, also from Medill.[22] Eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War