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George R.R. Martin
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Born
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September 20, 1948 (age 61) Bayonne, New Jersey
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Notable Wild Cards Creations
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Official Website
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George R.R. Martin, sometimes referred to as GRRM, was born George Raymond Richard Martin on September 20, 1948 in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten.
He is an American writer and editor best known for his ongoing epic A Song of Ice and Fire series.
As a youth, Martin was an avid reader and collector of comic books. Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School.
In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern. Martin began writing short fiction in the early 1970s making his first professional sale in 1970. His first story to be nominated for Hugo and Nebula Award was "With Morning Comes Mistfall" published by the Analog magazine in 1973.
As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.
In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.
In the 1980s he turned to work in television as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television and as a book editor. He oversaw the lengthy Wild Cards cycle, which took place in a shared universe in which an alien virus bestowed strange powers or disfigurements on a slice of humanity during World War II, affecting the history of the world thereafter (the premise was inspired by comic book superheroes and a Superworld superhero role-playing game of which Martin was gamemaster). Contributors to the Wild Cards series included Stephen Leigh, Lewis Shiner, Howard Waldrop, Walter Jon Williams and Roger Zelazny. His own contributions to the series often featured Thomas Tudbury, "The Great and Powerful Turtle", a powerful psychokinetic whose flying "shell" consisted of an armored VW Beetle.
In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.
In 1991 Martin returned to writing novel-length stories, and began what would eventually turn into his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. A Game of Thrones was published in 1996. In November 2005, A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in this series, became The New York Times #1 Bestseller and also achieved #1 ranking on The Wall Street Journal bestseller list, and was nominated for several award. Martin is currently writing the sixth book in the series which is projected to run into seven volumes.
In January, 2007 HBO Productions purchased the broadcast rights for the entire A Song of Ice and Fire series, with the author also serving as co-executive producer on the project. The plan calls for each book from the series to be filmed over an entire season's worth of episodes. Production will take place in the UK and Martin is reported to have agreed to script one episode per season.
To date, Martin has won multiple science fiction awards, including four Hugos, two Nebulas, the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Daedalus Award, the Balrog Award, and the Daikon (the Japanese Hugo).
Martin's currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers' Guild of America, West.