An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.

Author of a written or legally copied work[link]

Legal significance[link]

In copyright law, there is a necessity for little flexibility as to what constitutes authorship. The United States Copyright Office defines copyright as "a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to authors of "original works of authorship".^[1] Holding the title of "author" over any "literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, [or] certain other intellectual works" give rights to this person, the owner of the copyright, exclusive right to do or authorize any production or distribution of their work. Any person or entity wishing to use intellectual property held under copyright must receive permission from the copyright holder to use this work, and often will be asked to pay for the use of copyrighted material. After a fixed amount of time, the copyright expires on intellectual work and it enters the public domain, where it can be used without limit. Copyright law has been amended time and time again since the inception of the law to extend the length of this fixed period where the work is exclusively controlled by the copyright holder. However, copyright is merely the legal reassurance that one owns his/her work. Technically, someone owns their work from the time it's created. An interesting aspect of authorship emerges with copyright in that it can be passed down to another upon one's death. The person who inherits the copyright is not the author, but enjoys the same legal benefits.

Questions arise as to the application of copyright law. How does it, for example, apply to the complex issue of fan fiction? If the media agency responsible for the authorized production allows material from fans, what is the limit before legal constraints from actors, music, and other considerations, come into play? As well, how does copyright apply to fan-generated stories for books? What powers do the original authors, as well as the publishers, have in regulating or even stopping the fan fiction?

Literary significance[link]

In literary theory, critics find complications in the term "author" beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting. In the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text.

Barthes challenges the idea that a text can be attributed to any single author. He quotes, in his essay "Death of the Author" (1968), that "it is language which speaks, not the author".^[2] The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, and not someone possessing legal responsibility for the process of its production. Every line of written text is a mere reflection of references from any of a multitude of traditions, or, as Barthes puts it, "the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture"; it is never original.^[2] With this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, and the limits formerly imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed. The explanation and meaning of a work does not have to be sought in the one who produced it, "as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fictioni, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us".^[2] The psyche, culture, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich enough themselves with all of the traditions of language. To expose meanings in a written work without appealing to the celebrity of an author, their tastes, passions, vices, is, to Barthes, to allow language to speak, rather than author.

Michel Foucault argues in his essay "What is an author?" (1969), that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. He states that "a private letter may have a signatory—it does not have an author".^[3] For a reader to assign the title of author upon any written work is to attribute certain standards upon the text which, for Foucault, are working in conjunction with the idea of "the author function".^[3] Foucault's author function is the idea that an author exists only as a function of a written work, a part of its structure, but not necessarily part of the interpretive process. The author's name "indicates the status of the discourse within a society and culture", and at one time was used as an anchor for interpreting a text, a practice which Barthes would argue is not a particularly relevant or valid endeavor.^[3]

Expanding upon Foucault's position, Alexander Nehamas writes that Foucault suggests "an author [...] is whoever can be understood to have produced a particular text as we interpret it", not necessarily who penned the text.^[4] It is this distinction between producing a written work and producing the interpretation or meaning in a written work that both Barthes and Foucault are interested in. Foucault warns of the risks of keeping the author's name in mind during interpretation, because it could affect the value and meaning with which one handles an interpretation.

Literary critics Barthes and Foucault suggest that readers should not rely on or look for the notion of one overarching voice when interpreting a written work, because of the complications inherent with a writer's title of "author." They warn of the dangers interpretations could suffer from when associating the subject of inherently meaningful words and language with the personality of one authorial voice. Instead, readers should allow a text to be interpreted in terms of the language as "author."

Relationship between author and publisher[link]

The publisher of a work might receive a percentage calculated on a wholesale or a specific price and or a fixed amount on each book that is sold. Publishers, at times, reduced the risk of this type of arrangement, by agreeing only to pay this after a certain amount of copies had sold. In Canada this practice occurred during the 1890s, but was not commonplace until the 1920s.

• Commissioned: Publishers made publication arrangements, and authors covered all expenses (today the practice of authors paying for their publications is often called vanity publishing, and is looked down upon by many publishers, even though it may have been a common and accepted practice in the past). Publishers would receive a percentage on the sale of every copy of a book, and the author would receive the rest of the money made.

Relationship between author and editor[link]

The relationship between the author and the editor, often the author's only liaison to the publishing company, is often characterized as the site of tension. For the author to reach his or her audience, the work usually must attract the attention of the editor. The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher in order to engage the audience in writing as a social act.

Pierre Bourdieu's essay "The Field of Cultural Production" depicts the publishing industry as a "space of literary or artistic position-takings," also called the "field of struggles," which is defined by the tension and movement inherent among the various positions in the field.^[5] Bourdieu claims that the "field of position-takings [...] is not the product of coherence-seeking intention or objective consensus," meaning that an industry characterized by position-takings is not one of harmony and neutrality.^[6] In particular for the writer, their authorship in their work makes their work part of their identity, and there is much at stake personally over the negotiation of authority over that identity. However, it is the editor who has "the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in the struggle to define the writer".^[7] As "cultural investors," publishers rely on the editor position to identify a good investment in "cultural capital" which may grow to yield economic capital across all positions.^[8]

According to the studies of James Curran, the system of shared values among editors in Britain has generated a pressure among authors to write to fit the editors' expectations, removing the focus from the reader-audience and putting a strain on the relationship between authors and editors and on writing as a social act. Even the book review by the editors has more significance than the readership's reception.^[9]

Compensation[link]

A standard contract for an author will usually include provision for payment in the form of an advance and royalties. An advance is a lump sum paid in advance of publication. An advance must be earned out before royalties are payable. An advance may be paid in two lump sums: the first payment on contract signing, and the second on delivery of the completed manuscript or on publication.

An author's contract may specify, for example, that they will earn 10% of the retail price of each book sold. Some contracts specify a scale of royalties payable (for example, where royalties start at 10% for the first 10,000 sales, but then increase to a higher percentage rate at higher sale thresholds).

An author's book must earn out their advance before any further royalties are paid. For example, if an author is paid a modest advance of $2000.00, and their royalty rate is 10% of a book priced at $20.00 - that is, $2.00 per book - the book will need to sell 1000 copies before any further payment will be made. Publishers typically withhold payment of a percentage of royalties earned against returns.

In some countries, authors also earn income from a government scheme such as the ELR (Educational Lending Right) and PLR (Public Lending Right) schemes in Australia. Under these schemes, authors are paid a fee for the number of copies of their books in educational and/or public libraries.

These days, many authors supplement their income from book sales with public speaking engagements, school visits, residencies, grants, and teaching positions.

Ghostwriters, technical writers, and textbooks writers are typically paid in a different way: usually a set fee or a per word rate rather than on a percentage of sales.

See also[link]

• Novelist
• Writer
• Lists of writers
• Lists of poets
• List of novelists
• Professional writing
• Academic authorship
• Ghostwriter
• Lead author
• Autuer

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Author

Look up author in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up authorship in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiversity has learning materials about Collaborative_play_writing

• A system for fast authorship by Daniel Hall

Jonah Lehrer talking at Pop!Tech, 2009

Jonah Lehrer (born June 25, 1981) is an American author and journalist who writes on the topics of psychology, neuroscience, and the relationship between science and the humanities. He has published three books. Simon Ings has written, "Lehrer fancies himself – and not without reason – as a sort of one-man third culture, healing the rift between sciences and humanities by communicating and contrasting their values in a way that renders them comprehensible to partisans of either camp."^[1]

Life[link]

Lehrer graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a major in neuroscience; while an undergraduate, he examined the biological process of memory in Professor Eric Kandel's Lab.^[2] He was also editor of the Columbia Review for two years.^[2] He then studied 20th century literature and philosophy at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.^[3] He is a contributing editor at Wired, Scientific American Mind, National Public Radio's Radiolab, and has written for The New Yorker, Nature, Seed, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe.^[4] Jonah Lehrer is also featured in brief informational sessions on the television show "Brink", on the science channel. He currently writes the "Head Case" column for The Wall Street Journal.

Books[link]

Jonah Lehrer is the author of three books: Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2007), How We Decide (2009), and Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012).

Proust Was a Neuroscientist was Lehrer's debut book; it is a collection of biographical essays on creative figures such as Paul Cezanne, Walt Whitman, Auguste Escoffier, and Marcel Proust.^[5] Lehrer argues for an intimate relationship with science and the humanities, and he holds that many discoveries of neuroscience are actually rediscoveries of insights made much earlier by various artists.^[1]

In How We Decide, Lehrer argues there are two main parts of the brain involved in decision-making, the rational and the emotional.^[6] His thesis has been called into question based on current understanding of neuroscience.^[7] On 5 February 2009, he appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss the book.^[8] Lehrer appeared a second time on 17 April 2012 to promote his newest book "Imagine: How Creativity works".

See also[link]

• Multiple discovery

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jonah Lehrer

• Lehrer's website: "about/contact:Jonah Lehrer". http://www.jonahlehrer.com/about. 
• The Frontal Cortex Wired.com blog
• The Frontal Cortex (Archive)
• "Authors@google:Jonah Lehrer". June 11, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0InoDh5Nuc.  Videorecording of Jonah Lehrer's lecture at Google's Cambridge, MA office. Lehrer discusses his book Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2007).
• "Jonah Lehrer, Proust, and the Brain," 2008 interview by Andrea Hiott, Pulse Magazine Berlin
• 2012 radio interview (53 minutes) at The Bat Segundo Show

This article about an American writer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Gary Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngart at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
Born	Igor Shteyngart[1] (1972-07-05) July 5, 1972 (age 39)[2] Leningrad, USSR
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	United States

Gary Shteyngart (born Igor Shteyngart; July 5, 1972) is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.

Life[link]

Shteyngart spent the first seven years of his childhood living in a square dominated by a huge statue of Vladimir Lenin in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia; (he alternately calls it "St. Leningrad" or "St. Leninsburg"). He comes from a Jewish family and describes his family as typically Soviet. His father worked as an engineer in a LOMO camera factory; his mother was a pianist. Shteyngart emigrated to the United States in 1979 and was brought up with no television in the apartment in which he lived, where English was not the household language. He did not shed his thick Russian accent until the age of 14.^[3]

Shteyngart took a trip to Prague, and this experience helped spawn his first novel, set in the fictitious European city of Prava. He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School^[4] in New York City, Oberlin College in Ohio, where he earned a degree in politics, and Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing.

Shteyngart now lives in the Gramercy neighborhood of Manhattan. He has taught writing at Hunter College, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University.

Gary Shteyngart had a fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, for Fall 2007.^[5]

Awards[link]

Shteyngart's work has received numerous awards. The Russian Debutante's Handbook won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction Award and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and one of the best debuts of the year by The Guardian ^[6] In 2002, he was named one of the five best new writers by Shout NY Magazine. Absurdistan was chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review and Time magazine, as well as a book of the year by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications. In June 2010, Shteyngart was named as one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers.^[7] Super Sad True Love Story won the 2010 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic literature.

Work[link]

Shteyngart's novels include The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002), Absurdistan (2006), and Super Sad True Love Story (2010). His other writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, Granta, Travel and Leisure, and The New York Times.

Bibliography[link]

• The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002)
• Absurdistan (2006)
• Super Sad True Love Story (2010)

References[link]

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12437.Gary_Shteyngart
3. ^ Pilkington, Ed (June 29, 2007). "Russian revolution". The Guardian (London). http://books.guardian.co.uk/interviews/story/0,,2114545,00.html. Retrieved May 3, 2010. 
4. ^ Young, Liza (May 2006). "The Metamorphosis of a Writer: An Interview with Gary Shteyngart". Education Update. http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2006/May/html/car-metamorphosis.html. Retrieved 2007-11-01. 
5. ^ "Citigroup Distinguished Visitor, Class of Fall 2007". American Academy in Berlin. http://www.americanacademy.de/home/person/gary-shteyngart. Retrieved March 11, 2012. 
6. ^ http://www.columbia.edu/cu/writing/faculty/gary-shteyngart.html
7. ^ Bosman, Julie (June 2, 2010). "20 Young Writers Earn the Envy of Many Others". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/books/03under.html?scp=1&sq=new%20yorker%2040&st=cse. 

External links[link]

• Biography at barnesandnoble.com
• "Gary Shteyngart Becomes American" from Jewcy Magazine
• Interview with Georgetown's Program for Jewish Civilization
• Interview: 'On Meat over Meat: Dinner with Gary Shteyngart,' published in Gigantic
• Interview in the Forward
• Interview at Web del Sol.
• Interview from Modern Drunkard Magazine titled '10 Drinks with Gary Shteyngart'
• "Absurdistan", by Gary Shteyngart – Russian Unorthodox, review by Walter Kirn, New York Times, April 30, 2006
• With Zadie Smith at McNally Robinson
• Interview with Gary Shteyngart about Absurdistan, English and Italian version. BOOKSWEB TV
• Over There by Gary Shteyngart from Granta 84
• Interview with Gary Shteyngart: On Travel Writing
• http://therumpus.net/2009/10/james-francos-face/?full=yes
• Interview with Gary Shteyngart: On Stuyvesant High School
• Radio interview with Gary Shteyngart on CBC Radio One's Writers and Company
• In Conversation: 1984 2.0: Gary Shteyngart with Alessandro Cassin, The Brooklyn Rail

John J. Medina is a developmental molecular biologist with special research interests in the isolation and characterization of genes involved in human brain development and the genetics of psychiatric disorders. Medina has spent most of his professional life as an analytical research consultant, working primarily in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries on research issues related to mental health.

He was founding director of the Talaris Research Institute, which supports researchers such as Patricia Kuhl^[1] and John Gottman.^[2] He directed Talaris until 2006, and now is the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, which has worked on creating learning environments at Woodland Park Zoo.^[3] He is also an affiliate professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Dr. Medina writes the "Molecules of the Mind" column for the Psychiatric Times.

Education[link]

Dr. Medina earned his doctorate in molecular biology from Washington State University and is a national faculty fellow of Continuing Medical Education, Inc., of Irvine, CA. In 2004, he was appointed to the rank of affiliate scholar at the National Academy of Engineering.^[4]

Books[link]

• Brain Rules, about which Dr. Medina was recorded speaking at Google's Mountain View headquarters as part of the Authors@Google program on April 8, 2008.
• The Outer Limits of Life
• Depression: How it happens, How it's healed
• What You Need to Know About Alzheimer's
• The Clock of Ages
• The Genetic Inferno: Inside the Seven Deadly Sins
• Uncovering the Mystery of AIDS
• Of Serotonin, Dopamine and Antipsychotic Medications

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.johnmedina.com
• http://www.brainrules.net

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2011)

George R. R. Martin
Martin at the 2011 Time 100 gala
Born	(1948-09-20) September 20, 1948 (age 63) Bayonne, New Jersey
Occupation	Author
Nationality	American
Genres	Science fiction, horror, fantasy
Notable work(s)	A Song of Ice and Fire
Spouse(s)	Gale Burnick (1975–1979) Parris McBride (2011–present)
Influences Robert A. Heinlein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Stan Lee, William Faulkner, Roger Zelazny, Bernard Cornwell, Jack Vance, J. R. R. Tolkien, George MacDonald Fraser
Influenced Daniel Abraham, Scott Lynch, David Anthony Durham
www.georgerrmartin.com

George Raymond Richard Martin^[1] (born September 20, 1948), sometimes referred to as GRRM,^[2] is an American author and screenwriter of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is best known for A Song of Ice and Fire, his bestselling series of epic fantasy novels that HBO adapted for their dramatic pay-cable series Game of Thrones. Martin was selected by Time magazine as one of the "2011 Time 100", a list of the "most influential people in the world".^[3][4]

Biography[link]

George R. R. Martin was born on September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey,^[5] the son of a longshoreman. The family lived in a federal housing project near the Bayonne docks. As a child he wrote stories about a kingdom populated by his pet turtles. The turtles died frequently, and he decided that they were killing each other in "sinister plots".^[6] He attended Marist High School, where he developed interest in the superheroes of the Marvel Comics titles.^[7] He avidly read and collected 1960s comic books. Fantastic Four #20 (Nov 1963) featured a letter to the editor he wrote. He credits^[where?] attention garnered from this letter as inspiration for his becoming a professional writer. In 1965, Martin won an Alley Award for his story "Powerman vs. The Blue Barrier", the first of many awards he would win.

Eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War, to which he objected, Martin applied for and obtained conscientious objector status;^[8] he instead did alternative service work for two years as a VISTA volunteer. In 1970, Martin earned 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 to write science-fiction short stories in the early 1970s. His first story nominated for the Hugo Award^[9] and the Nebula Award was With Morning Comes Mistfall, published in 1973 by Analog magazine.

In 1976, for Kansas City's MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), Martin and his friend and fellow writer-editor Gardner Dozois conceived of and organized the first Hugo Losers Party for the benefit of all past and present Hugo-losing writers, their friends, and family the evening following the convention's Hugo Awards ceremony. Martin was nominated for two Hugoes that year but ultimately wound up losing both awards, for the novelette "...and Seven Times Never Kill Man" and the novella "The Storms of Windhaven", co-written with Lisa Tuttle^{[citation needed]}. The Hugo Losers Party became an annual Worldcon event thereafter, its formal title eventually evolving into something a little more politically correct as both its size and prestige grew.

Although much of his work is fantasy or horror, a number of his earlier works are science fiction occurring in a loosely defined future history, known informally as 'The Thousand Worlds' or 'The manrealm'. He has also written at least one piece of political-military fiction, "Night of the Vampyres", collected in Harry Turtledove's anthology The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century.^[10]

The unexpected failure of Martin's fourth book, Armageddon Rag (1983), "essentially destroyed my career as a novelist at the time", he recalled. It began his television career, however,^[6] by causing him to be hired to write for a revival of Twilight Zone and the dramatic-fantasy series Beauty and the Beast. As a book series editor, he oversaw the development of the lengthy Wild Cards cycle, which takes place in a shared universe in which a small slice of post-World War II humanity gains superpowers after the release of an alien-engineered virus. In Second Person Martin "gives a personal account of the close-knit role-playing game (RPG) culture that gave rise to his Wild Cards shared-world anthologies".^[11] Martin's own contributions to the multiple-author series often feature Thomas Tudbury, "The Great and Powerful Turtle", a powerful psychokinetic whose flying "shell" consisted of an armored VW Beetle. Twenty-one volumes had been published in the series as of June 2011. Earlier that year, Martin signed the contract for the twenty-second Wild Cards volume, to be called Low Ball when published by Tor Books.

Martin's novella, Nightflyers, was adapted into a 1987 feature film of the same title.

GRRM signing books in a bookstore in Ljubljana, Slovenia (June 2011)

Martin was also a college instructor in journalism and a chess tournament director. In his spare time, he collects medieval-themed miniatures, reading and collecting science fiction, fantasy, and horror books, and treasuring his still-growing comics collection, which includes the first issues of Marvel's "silver age" Spider-Man and Fantastic Four.

On February 15, 2011, Martin married his longtime paramour Parris McBride during a small ceremony at their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home; the couple exchanged custom made, Celtic-inspired wedding rings made for them by local artisans. Area friends were in attendance and helped them celebrate the occasion.^{[citation needed]}On August 19, 2011, they held a larger wedding ceremony and reception at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, in Reno, Nevada for their larger circle of friends within the fantasy and science fiction fields.^{[citation needed]}

A Song of Ice and Fire[link]

In 1991, Martin briefly returned to writing novels and began what would eventually turn into his epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire (reportedly inspired by the Wars of the Roses and Ivanhoe), which will run to at least seven volumes. The first volume 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. In addition, in September 2006, A Feast for Crows was nominated for both a Quill Award and the British Fantasy Award.^[12] The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, was published in July 2011, quickly becoming a huge international bestseller, including a #1 ranking on the New York Times Bestseller list and many others. The series has received critical praise from authors, readers, and critics alike. In 2012 A Dance With Dragons made the final ballot for science fiction and fantasy's Hugo Award, Locus Award, and the British Fantasy Award.

HBO series production[link]

During completion of A Dance With Dragons and other projects, George R. R. Martin was also heavily involved in the production of a television series adaptation of the A Song of Ice and Fire books named after the first book, A Game of Thrones. Martin's involvement included the selection of a production team and participation in scriptwriting; he is listed in the opening credits as an executive producer of the series.

HBO Productions purchased the television rights for the entire A Song of Ice and Fire series in 2007. Game of Thrones (the series title) began airing the fantasy series on their U. S. premium cable channel April 17, 2011; it ran weekly for ten episodes, each approximately an hour long.^[13] The series was renewed shortly after the first episode aired. The first season was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards, ultimately winning two for the freshman pay-cable series. Its second season of another ten episodes, based on the second Ice and Fire novel A Clash of Kings, began airing on HBO in the U. S. April 1, 2012.

Themes[link]

Critics have described Martin's work as dark and cynical.^[14] His first novel, Dying of the Light, set the tone for most of his future work; it is set on a mostly abandoned planet that is slowly becoming uninhabitable as it moves away from its sun. This story, and many of Martin's others, have a strong sense of melancholy. His characters are often unhappy or, at least, unsatisfied – trying to stay idealistic in a ruthless world. Many have elements of tragic heroes in them. Reviewer T. M. Wagner writes, "Let it never be said Martin doesn't share Shakespeare's fondness for the senselessly tragic."^[15] This gloominess can be an obstacle for some readers. The Inchoatus Group writes, "If this absence of joy is going to trouble you, or you’re looking for something more affirming, then you should probably seek elsewhere."^[16]

Martin's characters are multi-faceted—each with surprisingly intricate pasts, aspirations, and ambitions. Publishers Weekly writes of his ongoing epic fantasy A Song of Ice and Fire, "The complexity of characters such as Daenarys [sic], Arya and the Kingslayer will keep readers turning even the vast number of pages contained in this volume, for the author, like Tolkien or Jordan, makes us care about their fates."^[17] No one is given an unrealistic string of luck, however; so misfortune, injury, and death (and even false death) can befall any character, major or minor, no matter how attached the reader has become. Martin has described his penchant for killing off important characters as being necessary for the story's depth: "...when my characters are in danger, I want you to be afraid to turn the page, (so) you need to show right from the beginning that you're playing for keeps."

Major themes and areas of exploration in his short fiction include loneliness, connection, tragically doomed love, idealism, romanticism, and hard truth versus comforting deceit. Many of these occur in his magnum opus as well, but most of them are more abundant and obvious in his shorter works.

Relationship with fans[link]

Teaching at Clarion West, 1998.

Martin is known for his regular, decades-long attendance at science fiction conventions and comics conventions and his accessibility to fans. In the early 1970s, critic and writer Thomas Disch identified Martin^[where?] as a member of the "Labor Day Group", writers who regularly congregated at the annual Worldcon, usually held on or around the Labor Day weekend.

Martin's official fan club is the "Brotherhood Without Banners", who have a regular posting board at the Forum of the westeros.org website, which is centered upon his Ice and Fire fantasy series.^{[citation needed]}

Martin has been criticized by some readers for the long delays between books in the Ice and Fire series, notably the five-year gap between the fourth volume, A Feast for Crows (2006), and the fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons (2011).^{[18] [19]} In 2012, musical duo Paul and Storm, in a song dedicated to Martin, asked him to "write faster".^[20] In 2010, Martin responded to these concerns, saying he was unwilling to write his Ice and Fire series exclusively, saying that other writing and editing different projects has always been part of his working process.^[21]

Martin is strongly opposed to fan fiction, believing it to be copyright infringement and a bad exercise for aspiring writers.^[22][23]

Bibliography[link]

Author[link]

Novels[link]

• Dying of the Light (1977) – Hugo Award nominee, 1978;^[24] British Fantasy Award nominee, 1979^[25]
• Windhaven (1981, with Lisa Tuttle) – Locus SF Award nominee, 1982^[26]
• Fevre Dream (1982) – Locus SF^[26] and World Fantasy Award nominee, 1983^[27]
• The Armageddon Rag (1983) – Locus SF^[26] and World Fantasy Award nominee, 1984^[27]
• Hunter's Run (2007, expanded version of the novella "Shadow Twin", with Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham)
• A Song of Ice and Fire series:
  • A Game of Thrones (1996) – Locus Fantasy Award winner,^[26] Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominee, 1997^[27]
  • A Clash of Kings (1998) – Locus Fantasy Award winner,^[26] Nebula Award nominee, 1999^[28]
  • A Storm of Swords (2000) – Locus Fantasy Award winner,^[26] Hugo^[24] and Nebula Awards nominee, 2001^[29]
    • Part 1 Steel and Snow (UK edition only; US edition published as a single volume)
    • Part 2 Blood and Gold (UK edition only; US edition published as a single volume)
  • A Feast for Crows (2005) – Hugo,^[24] Locus Fantasy,^[26] and British Fantasy Awards nominee, 2006^[30]
  • A Dance with Dragons (2011) - Hugo Award nominee ^[31]
    • Part 1 Dreams and Dust (UK Edition)
    • Part 2 After the Feast (UK Edition)
  • The Winds of Winter (forthcoming)
  • A Dream of Spring (forthcoming)

Selected novelettes[link]

• "A Song for Lya", originally in Analog, June 1974.
• "Night of the Vampyres", originally in 'Amazing, 1975,^[32] re-published in The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century
• "The Skin Trade" (1989) from the three-author collection Dark Visions; optioned for film by Mike the Pike Productions^[33]
• "Tales of Dunk and Egg" series – set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire
  • "The Hedge Knight" (1998)
  • "The Sworn Sword" (2003)
  • "The Mystery Knight" (2010)
  • "The She-Wolves of Winterfell" (forthcoming)
• "Shadow Twin" (2004) with Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham
• Shadow Twin (2005) published in hardcover as an illustrated, signed, and numbered limited-edition from Subterranean Press
• Sandkings, Hugo, Nebula awards winner.
• Meathouse Man, first published in 1976, in Orbit 18.

Children's book[link]

• The Ice Dragon

Collections[link]

• A Song for Lya (1976)
• Songs of Stars and Shadows (1977)
• Sandkings (1981)
• Songs the Dead Men Sing (1983)
• Nightflyers (1985)
• Tuf Voyaging (1987, collection of linked stories)
• Portraits of His Children (1987)
• Quartet (2001)
• GRRM: A RRetrospective (2003); reprinted in 2006 and 2007 in two volumes as Dreamsongs

Television[link]

• The Twilight Zone
  • The Last Defender of Camelot (1986) – writer (teleplay)
  • The Once and Future King (1986) – writer (teleplay), story editor
  • A Saucer of Loneliness (1986) – story editor
  • Lost and Found (1986) – writer (teleplay), from a published short story by Phyllis Eisenstein
  • The World Next Door (1986) – story editor
  • The Toys of Caliban (1986) – writer (teleplay), from an unpublished short story by Terry Matz
  • The Road Less Travelled (1986) – writer (story and teleplay), story editor
• Beauty and the Beast
  • Terrible Saviour (1987) – writer
  • Masques (1987) – writer
  • Shades of Grey (1988) – writer
  • Promises of Someday (1988) – writer
  • Fever (1988) – writer
  • Ozymandias (1988) – writer
  • Dead of Winter (1988) – writer
  • Brothers (1989) – writer
  • When the Blue Bird Sings' (1989) – writer (teleplay)
  • A Kingdom by the Sea (1989) – writer
  • What Rough Beast (1989) – writer (story)
  • Ceremony of Innocence (1989) – writer
  • Snow (1989) – writer
  • Beggar's Comet (1990) – writer
  • Invictus (1990) – writer
• Doorways (1993, unreleased pilot) – writer, producer, creator; (IDW Publishing issued the pilot's storyline as a graphic novel miniseries in 2010)^[34]
• Game of Thrones
  • "The Pointy End" – writer (story, teleplay, 1st season)
  • "Blackwater" – writer (story, teleplay, 2nd season)

Editor[link]

• New Voices in Science Fiction (1977: new stories by the John W. Campbell Award winners)
• New Voices in Science Fiction 2 (1979: more new stories by the John W. Campbell Award winners)
• New Voices in Science Fiction 3 (1980: more new stories by the John W. Campbell Award winners)
• New Voices in Science Fiction 4 (1981: more new stories by the John W. Campbell Award winners)
• The Science Fiction Weight Loss Book (1983) edited with Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg ("Stories by the great science fiction writers on fat, thin, and everything in between")
• The John W. Campbell Awards, Volume 5 (1984)
• Night Visions 3 (1986)

Wild Cards Series Editor (also contributor to many volumes)[link]

• Wild Cards (1987; contents expanded in 2010 edition with three new stories/authors)
• Wild Cards II: Aces High (1987)
• Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild (1987)
• Wild Cards IV: Aces Abroad (1988)
• Wild Cards V: Down & Dirty (1988)
• Wild Cards VI: Ace in the Hole (1990)
• Wild Cards VII: Dead Man's Hand (1990)
• Wild Cards VIII: One-Eyed Jacks (1991)
• Wild Cards IX: Jokertown Shuffle (1991)
• Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire (1992)
• Wild Cards XI: Dealer's Choice (1992)
• Wild Cards XII: Turn of the Cards (1993)
• Wild Cards: Card Sharks (1993; Book I of a New Cycle trilogy)
• Wild Cards: Marked Cards (1994; Book II of a New Cycle trilogy)
• Wild Cards: Black Trump (1995; Book III of a New Cycle trilogy)
• Wild Cards: Deuces Down (2002)
• Wild Cards: Death Draws Five (2006; solo novel by John J. Miller)
• Wild Cards: Inside Straight (2008; Book I of the Committee triad)
• Wild Cards: Busted Flush (2008; Book II of the Committee triad)
• Wild Cards: Suicide Kings (2009; Book III of the Committee triad)
• Wild Cards: Fort Freak (2011)
• Wild Cards: Lowball (forthcoming 2012; sequel to Fort Freak)

[edit] Cross-genre anthologies edited (with Gardner Dozois)

• Songs of the Dying Earth (2009; a tribute anthology to Jack Vance´s seminal Dying Earth series, first published by Subterranean Press)
• Warriors (2010; a massive, cross-genre anthology featuring stories about war and warriors; winner of the 2011 Locus Poll Award for Best Anthology)
• Songs of Love and Death (2010; a cross-genre anthology featuring stories of romance in fantasy and science fiction settings, originally entitled Star Crossed Lovers)
• Down These Strange Streets (2011; a cross-genre anthology that blends classic detective stories with fantasy and science fiction)
• Dangerous Women (tentative title; forthcoming; a cross-genre anthology focusing on women warriors and strong female characters, originally titled Femmes Fatales)^[35]
• Rogues (planned, a cross-genre anthology featuring stories about assorted rogues)^[36]
• Old Mars (planned, an anthology featuring new stories about Mars in retro-SF vein)^[37]
• Old Venus (planned, an anthology featuring new stories about Venus in retro-SF vein)^[38]

Awards[link]

• "A Song for Lya" 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novella
• "Sandkings" 1980 Hugo Award for Best Novelette and Nebula Award for Best Novelette (the only one among Martin's stories to achieve that double)
• "The Way of Cross and Dragon" 1980 Hugo Award for Best Short Story
• "Portraits of His Children" 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novelette
• "The Pear-Shaped Man" 1988 Bram Stoker Award for Long Fiction
• "The Skin Trade" 1989 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella
• "Blood of the Dragon" 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella
• A Game of Thrones 2003 Premio Ignotus for Best Foreign Novel
• A Clash of Kings 2004 Premio Ignotus for Best Foreign Novel
• A Feast for Crows 2006 Quill Award and British Fantasy Award (nominated)
• A Storm of Swords 2006 Premio Ignotus for Best Foreign Novel
• Warriors (co-edited with Gardner Dozois) 2011 Locus Poll Award for Best Anthology
• Declared by Time Magazine "One of the Most Influential People of 2011"^[3]

A more complete list of Martin's awards and nominations can be found at The Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George R. R. Martin

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George R. R. Martin

• Official website
• Not A Blog: George R. R. Martin's Livejournal
• George R. R. Martin's Podcast
• George R. R. Martin at the Internet Movie Database
• George R. R. Martin Complete Bibliography
• George R.R. Martin at the Internet Book List
• George R. R. Martin at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Works by or about George R. R. Martin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)