‘Game Of Thrones’ Author Gives Northwestern University $5 Million

George R.R. Martin, famed author of the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, which includes the 1996 best-seller, Game of Thrones, has given $5 million to Northwestern University, his alma mater. The gift will be split in two parts, both of which will go to Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.

Martin, who earned his B.S. in journalism from Medill in 1970 and an M.S. from the school in 1971, is giving $3 million to establish the George R.R. Martin Summer Intensive Writing Workshop. Slated to begin in 2024, the workshop is intended to prepare journalism professionals to establish careers in creative writing. The workshop will enroll six to eight fiction writers, screenwriters and playwrights each summer and provide them resources and guidance to develop their projects.

The second part of the gift will be used to fund a $2 million endowed professorship, the George R.R. Martin Chair in Storytelling. The professor who holds that chair will lead the George R.R. Martin Summer Intensive Writing Workshop, as well as teach a range of courses from narrative nonfiction to creative writing for both undergraduate and graduate students.

The Martin Chair holder will also be expected to collaborate with faculty in the School of Communication and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences to “convene panels and conferences on writing for students, the greater Northwestern community and the public and be a liaison to industries related to long-form narrative and storytelling,” according to the university.

“George R.R. Martin is a prolific and iconic author with an international audience,” said Northwestern President Michael H. Schill. “We are so grateful for his generosity to his alma mater, which will inspire and equip the next generation of storytellers at Northwestern.”

Martin’s first professional sale as a writer was at age 21, when he sold a comic, “The Hero,” to Galaxy, which published it in a February, 1971 issue. After earning his degrees at Northwestern, Martin, who was a conscientious objector, did a period of alternative service with VISTA. He also was a journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978, in addition to writing part-time throughout the 1970s.

He worked as a story editor for “The Twilight Zone” at CBS Television and later became executive story consultant and then a producer for “Beauty and the Beast,” also on CBS.

Best known for his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels, Martin served as co-executive producer of HBO’s Emmy-winning series Game of Thrones. He also wrote Fire & Blood, the basis for HBO’s House of the Dragon, the prequel to Game of Thrones. His books have sold millions of copies and been translated into 47 languages.

Martin was inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement in 2015. In 2021, Northwestern awarded him the honorary title of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Lev Grossman of Time magazine referred to Martin as “the American Tolkien.” In 2011, Time named him to the “Time 100,” a list of the most influential people in the world.