[applause]

EVE EWING:
For those of you who don't know

my name is Eve Louise Ewing.

I'm the person on the stage who is
not George R. R. Martin.

[applause]

George R. R. Martin:
The winner of the 21st century award.

EVE:
Yes, very recent winner of the 21st

century award. Thank you.

[applause]

GEORGE:
I think I could be a contender for

the 13th century award.

[laughs]

EVE:
Well this stage, this is a very beautiful

setup, that also gives me a strangely
ominous feeling that something terrible

is about to happen.

[laughs]

Hopefully that's not the case.

It is such a tremendous honor to sit
down with you, I"m really grateful

that you're here.

I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions,
for about an hour.

They'll mostly be about writing,
generally.

GEORGE:
Very good.

EVE:
Then I'll ask you some fan

submitted questions.

We won't have an open audience Q&A
this evening but many people were

gracious enough to submit their questions
through the Chicago Humanities Festival.

GEROGE:
Sounds good to me.

EVE:
Okay great let's get into it.

'A Song of Ice and Fire' has emerged
as the work for which you are

most widely known, and you've made
an indelible mark on popular culture

but you have had a capacious career.

Beginning as a professional writer in
1970,

and since then you've produced a wildly
diverse body of work,

I could take all night listing your

projects,

but I'm going to throw a few out there
for folks that are not familiar.

You're early novels 'Dying of the Light',
'Fever Dream', you wrote for a

1980's reboot of 'The Twilight Zone',

wrote for the TV adaptation of
'Beauty and the Beast' .

The landmark, somewhat bizarre,
surrealist show 'Max Headroom',

short story collections like 'Sand Kings',
'Portraits of His Children', I could go

on and on.

Does it ever bother you that so many
people want to talk to you primarily

about 'A Song of Ice and Fire'?

GEORGE:
It's a little surreal sometimes,

I understand of course that
'A Song of Ice and Fire'

and 'Game of Thrones' are vastly
more popular than anything else

I've ever done.

But it does startle me sometimes that
some people think it's the only thing

I've ever done.

I sometimes even read in articles online,
how I began in 1996 with 'Game of Thrones'.

As I said, my first story appeared in
1971.

So I had 25 years of publishing
50 short stories, and novels,

and short story collections,
editing anthologies,

winning various Hugo and Nebula awards,

and losing a lot more Hugo and Nebula 
awards.

[laughter]

There was a lot there, and it's not like
it's secret or anything or it was written

under a pseudonym, it's all perfectly
accessible if you google my name.

[laughter]

None the less, an amazing number of
people seem ignorant to it.

I should mention, on the things you listed
there, that I did do two projects for

'Max Headroom' but neither one was ever
filmed, sadly.

I wrote the 'Max Headroom' Christmas show,
which was actually in pre-production

when the show was cancelled.

We were not able to film that,
which broke my heart,

because it was a really fun episode.

We recently did a 'Max Headroom' reunion at
my little theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

We did a staged reading of it,
Matt Frewer actually came in for it.

He performed with some local actors.

It was great to finally see that after
like 30 years, it being acted out.

Even if only, by voices.

EVE:
Did you film it?

GEORGE:
Did we? I don't know.

We might have taped it.

EVE:
No one here seems to know either.

[laughter]

GEORGE:
We might have taped it, ya.

Max was an amazing show,
advanced for its time.

EVE:
Oh, absolutely.

GEORGE:
The young people here probably

don't even know what 'Max Headroom'
was.

EVE:
Only old people like me know.

GEORGE:
It was based on a TV movie that had

been done in England.

It takes place 23 minutes into the future,
something like that.

It was a show about television,
and artificial computer host Max Headroom

who was the host of his own show.

He was actually a personality
that lived in a computer.

Of course we didn't actually have
any computers capable of doing that,

in the early 90's when the show was on
so Max Headroom was acted by

Matt Frewer in extensive make up.

A lot of people thought that he was
a real computer host.

It would be great to revive it,
but the shows are still a lot of fun.

EVE:
It's a classic, I think it's a little bit

in the uncanny valley of creepiness,
the kind of make up look that is

supposed to look like a computer.

GEORGE:
Yes, yes definitely.

EVE:
I'm sure that the success of

'A Song of Ice and Fire' has probably
contributed, for some people who know

how to use the google machine,
to access your back list.

Are there particular earlier works of
yours that you really want to

shout out, that you wish people
would read more?

GEORGE:
Like anybody else I have favorite stories

and less favorite stories.

When I broke in I wrote mostly
short stories.

I published my first story in 1971,
in Galaxy magazine, "The Hero".

Over the next few years I published
thirty, forty, fifty short stories,

in the science fiction magazines
of the day.

I didn't attempt my first novel
until 1976, I wrote it and it

came out in 1977.

So I had six years of just publishing
short stories.

Probably my best known work before
'A Song of Ice and Fire' was

a short story called 'Sand Kings'.

It appeared in Omni,
it won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards.

That one is soon to be a
major motion picture I hope,

or possibly a minor motion picture.

I don't know, but it will be a 
motion picture we think, anyways,

so that's cool.

We have 'Fever Dream', my historical
horror novels

set on the Mississippi river in 1857.

EVE:
And there are vampires.

GEORGE:
Ya, vampires and steam boats.

That was a novel that I was particularly
fond of.

And my 'Wild Card' series, which is
actually the series I've been working on

longer than anything else.

I'm mostly the editor on that,
though I write for it too.

It's a super hero world,
not really super heroes.

People with super powers,
they don't necessarily become heroes.

It's unconventional in that it's
a realistic look at an alternate

world in which an alien virus
gives some people super powers.

When pitching 'Wild Cards'
I have to say why it is not a conventional

super hero template.

I say what would happen in a real world 
if all of you who are here tonight,

suddenly had a super power?

Some of you could run really fast,
some of you could throw lighting bolts,

some of you were really strong,
some of you could walk through walls.

Entirely arbitrarily, 'Wild Cards'.

How would it change your life,
how would it change the world,

what would you do?

I ask people that.

You know, all the years I've been asking
people that no one has ever answered,

I would buy a spandex costume
and fight crime.

[laughter]

Which means that there is something
wrong with the conventional comic book

trouple.

'Wild Cards' is an examination of that,
but it's also a lot of fun.

EVE:
Speaking of comics,

you've said that as you became a reader
in your early life,

comics were a really important escape
for you, from the stiffling

1950's literary world of Dick and Jane,
who are very boring people.

You've said that Stan Lee was one of your
greatest literary influences.

As a Marvel Comics writer I'm
contractually obligated to ask

you about that.

Are there lessons from comics as a
medium that you take into

your other writing?

GEORGE:
Yes, I think.

It would be very nice to say that my
great literary influences were

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens
and other respected literary figures,

and Tolkien of course.

I admire those three writers all 
enormously, but,

Stan Lee was probably more influential
than any of them.

The first published words of mine
ever to appear were my letter

in Fantastic Four #20.

Which was critiquing, if you could call it
a critique, Fantastic Four #17.

My critique consisted of saying,
move over Shakespeare,

Stan Lee has arrived.

[laughter[

You've gotta wonder why Stan
chose to publish that letter.

I'd read comic books since I
was a little kid,

the funny animal comics,
Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck,

Archie, all of that stuff.

Super heroes, especially the DC 
super heroes,

Super Man, Bat Man, The Flash, 
all of that.

I had read all of those.

The minute Marvel came on the scene,
I think my interest in comics had

actually been waning, the DC comics
of the time were stiffling,

they were perfectly circular.

Super Man, he was Clark Kent he worked
for the Daily Planet.

Perry White was the editor,
Jimmy Olson was his best friend.

Lois Lane was his girlfriend.

Something would happen, aliens would
invade or there would be

a villain or something, and Super Man 
would have an adventure.

It would go circular,
it would end right where it began.

Everything would be back in place,
nothing really ever happened in

a Super Man comic.

Which I realized after reading about
100 or so of them.

You could read them in any order,
they had their template and

nothing was ever gonna happen.

Jimmy Olson might become a giant
turtle man in the course of the adventure

but by the end of the adventure
he would be back to being Jimmy Olson.

There was no permanent changes.

Then Stan Lee came along with Marvel,
and the characters were fighting in the

Fantastic Four, the Thing didn't like
being the Thing.

He was constantly fighting with
Johnny Storm.

They didn't have secret identities,
their identities were out there.

Then Spider-Man came along.

Spider-Man, he didn't have his Lois Lane,
he had a series of girlfriends.

Liz Allen at first, who he had the 
hots for but she preferred to

bully Flash Thompson.

He couldn't get anywhere with her.

Then he took up with an older woman,
Betty Brandt, who was

J. Jonah's secretary.

He had that relationship for a while.

Then he took up with Gwen Stacy.

EVE:
That didn't work out.

[laughter]

GEORGE:
She died, ya.

That was traumatic, be she actually died!

DC never killed Lois Lane,
or even Jimmy Olson.

Although you might have wanted to.

Nothing ever happened in the DC comics.

A lot was happening in Marvel.

You didn't know who was safe,
you didn't know what would actually happen.

Time actually passed.

Believe it or not,
looking at the old dotard you see in hat

before you,
I went to high school with Peter Parker.

We were both in high school when
I started reading Spider-Man comics.

Just about the same time we both
graduated high school and

went to college.

I went to North Western, I'm in a 
different city, I'm making new friends,

I've got a room mate that I didn't
know before, taking new classes.

It's adjusting to a new whole new world.

Peter Parker went through the same stuff.

He went to college, he didn't go
as far away from home,

but he did have to move out of the
house with Aunt May.

Things happened and that was
amazing.

Another one of my comic books
letters, I published a number of letters

was a letter to the Avengers.

Which again, was published,
it was about Avengers #9,

which is when they introduced Wonder Man.

I'm not sure any of you remember
that issue, you were probably

a little too young.

You probably don't even remember
Wonder Man.

Wonder Man came in and he joined
the Avengers, he was a brand new hero,

he really wasn't a hero, he was a spy
who was set to join the Avengers

to destroy them from within.

He was only playing a hero,
he was actually gonna destroy

them from within.

Then he became friendly with them
and he couldn't bring himself

to destroy them from within.

He betrayed his masters and they killed him,

So he died in the same issue he
was introduced in.

I loved this of course, so I wrote
a long letter about how great this was.

I look back now and my whole career was
based on Avengers #9.

[laughter]

Introducing these grey characters who
have divided loyalties who are

not what they seem.

EVE:
And were a little traumatized.

GEORGE:
and then killing them unexpectedly.

Now of course it was comics so they
brought Wonder Man back eventually.

That's the big flaw with comics,
and I try never to bring anyone back.

Or if I do, they're really screwed up.

EVE:
What I'm really hearing you

talk about here is the idea of stakes.

Your readers have to believe that
the stakes are really high,

that somebody really might get murdered.

I read this interview with you where you
talk about reading Lord of the Rings,

and of course people frequently compare
you to Tolkien,

and feeling betrayed,

OK if you haven't read Lord of the Rings
you've had many decades so this is your

spoiler alert, OK.

That after they throw the ring in to the
fires of Mordor and it's destroyed

that they come back to the shire
and the shire is getting sacked,

the scouring of the shire,

and you talk about feeling betrayed,
that the story didn't have a happy ending.

Now you've gone on where basically
all your writing, you've become famous for

writing iterations of 
the scouring of the shire.

It seems like part of what you're taking
on is keeping the stakes high.

GEORGE:
Yes, I do believe that.

I read Lord of the Rings when it 
was first published in the United States.

Actually, the illegal pirated edition.

They were amazing books,
I couldn't get enough of them.

I was only like 13 years old,
or something like that.

When the ring went into the volcano,
I said, well this is the end of the story,

why is there so much more?

Then I hit the scouring of the shire
and I realized it wasn't the unequivocal

happy ending, yay, the heroes have won,
that I thought it would be.

I really didn't understand it
as a 13 year old.

Of course, I reread Lord of the Rings
every few years.

I've come to not only understand it
but I have a deep appreciation of it.

Peter Jackson's movies are brilliant
I think.

They're as good an adaptation of Lord
of the Rings that you could possibly get.

But I do miss the scouring of the shire,
which he doesn't include.

It's an important part of the book,
it says something important.

I took that to heart.

The other thing about reading Tolkien,
of course is, like Wonder Man,

it had a similar effect,

In Fellowship when Gandalf dies,
what the hell?

Gandalf died? you can't kill Gandalf.

He's the head guy, he knows everything
that's going on.

The other characters seemed like kids
compared to Gandalf.

The four hobbits and the squire guys,
and I don't trust Boromir.

Now Tolkien later brought him back.

EVE:
He brought him back as like Gandalf 2.0.

GEORGE:
I know, I didn't like Gandalf the White,

I prefer Gandalf the Grey,
I've always preferred grey characters to

white characters.

If Professor Tolkien was here we
could argue about whether Gandalf

should have come back or not.

It had an enormous effect on me,
killing Gandalf.

Killing Gandalf also sets up, 
in the second book when he kills Frodo.

Oh my god, he killed Frodo,
Frodo was supposed to be the hero

he was the ring bearer,
now Sam is the ring bearer?

How is this gonna work out?

All of these things had an enormous effect
on a young me and,

they did raise the stakes.

The minute you kill Gandalf,
anybody can die.

Then you're looking at the members of
the fellowship and saying,

who are you going to kill next?

We got several extra hobbits, they could go.

[laughter]

EVE:
Mary and Pippen, they get a little

indistinguishable after a while.

GEORGE:
He didn't kill them,

but I was afraid he would, so,
that's the whole point

To have the reader on the each
of their seat.

To not know what's going to happen.

That's something I try to do in my books.

Especially in the scary parts, 
or the battles,

If you're really going into a battle,
you would be afraid before hand.

You would have this deep visceral fear,
are you going to survive the battle?

Nobody knows.

I want that experience for the reader,
I want the reader to not just

read the book but to live the book.

To almost be afraid to turn the next page,

when suddenly the hero is surrounded
by six big guys with axes.

You shouldn't fee, oh, it's Conan,
he's gonna get out of it.

Six guys with axes, nothing.

You should be terrified that these six
guys with axes are going to

hack you apart.

I guarantee you if you leave this
wonderful place tonight and are

confronted with six guys with axes
you'll be scared.

We'll read about you in the Tribune
tomorrow.

How your hacked up body was found.

[laughter]

EVE:
Alright, OK.

So, you mention the Wild Card series
which you have been editing for basically

as long as I have been alive.

It's a really cool concept,
not only for the reasons you mentioned

about really engaging with whatever the 
real stakes of super powers are,

but also because it's a shared universe,
and you've collaborated on these

edited stories written by over 50 authors,
working collaboratively.

You've also edited multiple anthologies.

My personal opinion which you may
agree or disagree with,

is that a good editor is actually
a much rarer thing than a good writer.

I was wondering if you could talk a little
bit about your identity as an editor,

and how it may differ from your identity
as a writer.

GEORGE:
I don't know if ts a rarer thing,

but in the anthologies that I have done,
anthologies like Dangerous Women,

Warriors, Rouges, I had the great pleasure
of working with Gardener,

who unfortunately passed away last year.

Gardener was one of the greatest editors
in the entire history of science fiction.

He won the Hugo award for best editor
sixteen times.

Which is pretty amazing.

Working with him was on those books 
was increidble.

I have edited other things, Wild Cards is
a unique challenge because it is

a shared world.

When you're editing an ordinary anthology,
not that any anthology is ordinary,

when you're editing a more conventional
anthology you're just buying good stories

and they may have a theme,
the theme is unicorns,

so you invite people to send you
unicorn stories.

But all you're looking at is if its
a good story, is it a bad story,

can it be improved, if it has flaws,
how do you fix it?

With a shared world you still have that,
but also your stories have to fit together.

They are all essentially parts of a whole.

They can't have contradictions,
they can't have duplications.

So a lot more rewriting is required,
a lot more working together and

a lot more editing.

The Wild Cards are a very challenging
series to edit, but I enjoyed doing that.

I actually sort of got into editing almost
by accident.

My first published book was actually
a book I edited not a book I wrote.

At beginning of my career in 1973,
I was nominated for the John W. Campbell

award for the best new writer in 
Science Fiction.

That was a brand new award given
for the first time in 1973.

Campbell had just died in 1971.

I lost that award, it was the first of
many awards that I've lost over the years

in the field.

I was nominated, and it is a great honor
to be nominated, the nominators

picked me as one of the six best new 
writers that entered Science Fiction

in the last two years.

At the time there was an anthology
called the Hugo Winners,

and there was an anthology called
the Nebula Award's Book,

but I wasn't nominated for them yet.

There was no anthology for the 
Campbell award nominees.

I thought there should be because it would
a guaranteed sale for me.

After I lost that very same convention,
I went to some of the editors and said,

why don't you have a Campbell award
anthology just like you have the

Hugo and Nebula anthologies?

I thought somebody famous would do it
and I could sell them a story,

it would be a guaranteed sale for me.

Instead they said, oh good idea you do it.

So suddenly I found myself editing a book,
I didn't know anything about editing books

I learned on the fly, and I did six
volumes of the series that would be

called the New Voices, ultimately.

That was my introduction to editing,
entirely by circumstance.

Watch out if you suggest anything to
someone they might say, hey you do it.

Suddenly you'll find yourself working with
some people.

EVE:
Speaking of editing, we live in a world

that sort of fetishizes brevity, 
and short things,

what do you see as the virtue of 
continuing to write very long works

in that world, and how do you negotiate
that editorially?

GEORGE:
I do not share fetishation of brevity.

I am in the anti brevity camp.

[laughter]

My stories throughout my career have 
been getting longer and longer,

like I said when I began in the 70's
I wrote mostly short stories.

At a certain point my short stories
were getting longer, they were

now novelettes.

When I won my first Hugo it was for 
a novella.

So each of these is a longer category,
than the other,

then eventually six seven years into my
career I started writing novels.

They were relatively short novels,
at some point for sanity I found myself

writing Game of Thrones and it just
kept getting longer and longer and longer

I like it I think the length gives it a
richness, gives it a texture.

You can create world building,
you can create an immersive world,

and immersive universe,
the readers will lose themselves in.

For the length of the novel and perhaps
for many novels beyond that, many works.

I like that.

Yesterday when we attended the
award ceremony, they were flashing

quotations about writing on the walls
of the site where the awards were being

presented.

One of them was a quote that I wrote
for a book called On Fantasy,

it was about when I die they can keep
their heaven I'd rather go to Middle Earth.

Tolkien was the first really great world
builder.

He created Middle Earth in such detail,
that it seems like a real place to me.

I know Middle Earth much more than I know
many real places.

What do I know about Uruguay?

I know a lot more about middle earth than
I do about Uruguay.

I can describe it's scenic wonders and the
customs of its people.

The roads that go from there to there.

The Kings who ruled in past ages.

EVE:
And the languages and the geography

GEORGE:
It's an amazing place, I've tried to do

the same with Westeros.

That's one of the things that I think
is important about writing Fantasy,

Epic Fantasy.

There are many different types of
fantasy of course.

If any of you are aspiring writers,
or ever took fiction courses

or studied fiction in high school
or college or something like that

they used to at least in my day,
talk about the elements of fiction.

Plot, theme, character, etc. etc.

One of the elements of fiction was setting.

In most mainstream fiction, 
contemporary fiction,

setting gets short shrift.

OK, it's in Chicago, OK it's in
New York City,

or even, it's in Victorian England, 
we know all about that,

but the greatest fantasy to my mind
is distinguished by its settings.

The setting almost becomes a character,
Middle Earth becomes a real place,

it becomes a character,
the Shire, Rivendale, Ministereth,

Mordor, each of these is very
vivid and real, and I've tried

to do the same with my own Westeros.

Create a setting that was almost a
character in it's own right.

EVE:
Did you notice that one of those

quotations on the wall was said by
you, but was attributed to me?

GEORGE:
I did notice that.

[laughter]

Hey!

EVE:
I thought that was very strange.

GEORGE:
What a coincidence, Eve said exactly

the same thing.

EVE:
I did not say that.

I complained to someone but no 
change was made,

so I want you to know that I'm glad
you noticed that, I thought

it was very bizarre.

GEORGE:
There was also a typo in one of

my other ones.

There was one where I said that because
I'm a reader I have lived a thousand lives,

loved a thousand loves.

They changes the loves to lives.

So it was I've lived a thousand lives
and loved a thousand lives.

Which is sort of repetitious.

EVE:
We had a lovely time

we're very grateful,
it was a wonderful event.

GEORGE:
The awards were handsome, and we got to

meet the mayor and there were 82
authors on stage.

Amazing authors I wish all their books
had been on sale.

I would have gone home with a big stack
of them.

EVE:
So yesterday you were interviewed

by Scott Simon from NPR.

I thought you were very game in talking
about what its like to have so many people

waiting for your books.

I have an ongoing fascination with the
rhetoric people use,

because sometimes it seems to veer
out of the realm of fandom

and into the realm of entitlement.

In a way that seems to forget that you
are a human person who is trying to

make art which is a very difficult 
and unpleasant thing.

What are your thoughts on that,
do you think that people fundamentally

misunderstand something about what
writing is or about what this whole

business is?

GEORGE:
Well, yes, I think that some of them do.

Certainly.

Some of them don't seem to understand
that writers are different from eachother.

They will point out to me some other
writer and say, in the time you've been

working on Winds of Winter he's published
seven novels.

Indeed there are writers who do that.

There are writers you can practically
set your watch by.

They publish a novel a year,
boom, boom, boom.

That's great, I wish I could do that,
but I can't, I never could.

There are a couple of novels I wrote
throughout my career that took me

a year to write but they were like
a fifth the size of the novels

I'm writing now.

So that's not going to happen.

I can't help but think,
I don't want all the wonderful young

people I see in the audience to start
taking aim at me and throw things here

EVE:
Well we have all these apples.

[laughter[

GEORGE:
I do think there is an aspect of

generational change about this,
I think the older readers

baby boomers like me, or maybe even
generation X'ers are used to

waiting for things.

The internet has created a generation
that is used to instant gratification.

Instead of answers, they want what they
want and they want it now.

I think the internet kind of
creates that mindset.

The old days when I needed to learn
something I would have to go to the

library and find a book on it,
find another book on it just to

double check that it was right.

Now if I want to know anything I wip
up google and boom,

there's the answer in two minutes,
20 seconds actually.

Depending how fast your internet speed is.

It creates a different set of expectations

There are many things the internet does,
but it hasn't helped me write faster.

So there it is.

I try to keep it into proportion,
it is sometimes annoying to me that

there is so many voices that just want
Winds of Winter, and choose to remind

me every opportunity.

I know perfectly well that if any of you
go home tonight and go on Twitter

"I was just at the Chicago Symphony
Listening to George R. R. Martin"

within the first three responses to your
tweet someone will say well,

"where's Winds of Winter?".

Why isn't he writing it?

I mean go home try it, see if it doesn't
work that way.

On the other hand,
I think for the vast majority of writers

including some really good writers,
like I said we had 80 writers on the

stage yesterday at the Carl Sandberg awards

Many distinguished writers who 
have written novels and

works of non-fiction, terrific stuff.

You probably would never have heard of
many of them,

their books probably sell relatively
few copies.

For the vast majority of writers including
me, for much of my career,

the big question is obscurity,
how do you get yourself noticed amongst

all the books out there.

I try not to be ungrateful about the fact 
that I have millions of people

eagerly awaiting my next book.

It certainly beats having no one give
a damn about when my next book

is coming out.

Which is the fate of most writers,
that's what they struggle with.

You have to keep all of these things
into proportion.

With Game of Thrones achieving best
seller status, the books actually not

Games of Thrones, Game of Thrones was
not a best seller when it first came out.

EVE:
Was it 'Song of Swords'?

GEORGE:
It was the second book 'Clash of Kings'

hit the New York Times list for 
one week at 13 then it vanished.

The third book 'Storm of Swords' debuted
a little higher and lasted

a little longer, it wasn't until the
fourth book 'Feast for Crows' that

I hit number one on the Times list.

Then the show hit, and the books were
already number one New York Times

best sellers but the show made
everyone crazy about them.

It also made me famous to a degree
that I had never anticipated in my life

being famous.

This happened to me when I was in my 60's.

It's changed my life in ways that I don't
necessarily love, but there

are things about it that are great.

Probably more good things than bad things.

It certainly was a change.

I'm glad it happened to me,
strange as it seems,

when I was in my 60's.

It's given me an understanding of why
people like Lindsay Lohan and

Justin Bieber go crazy.

[laughter]

To be a sixteen year old kid and suddenly
have that level of fame and attention

and loss of privacy and thousands of
people commenting on every shirt that

you wear or every word that you say,
I don't know how any sixteen year old

could possibly handle that.

I at least have had many long years
of life on earth before I

descended into the strange world of
celebrity.

EVE:
And a lot of opportunity to make your

make your work on your own terms and not
kind of be accessing your success.

So there is a cultural critique 
Doreen St. Felix

who referred to Gwendolyn Brooks work,
you may remember from your time in Chicago

as being a citizen poet.

I think that in Santa Fe where you have
lived for many many years, you could

be seen as a really active citizen author,
you own the Jean Cocteau Cinema,

which you bought and had restored as an
eclectic movie house after it had

been shut down.

You've been a huge supporter of the
Wild Spirits wolf sanctuary.

Of course you are a co-conspirator
in MeowWolf and their many installations

and incredible works.

Do you see this kind of community work as
part of who you are as a writer

or is it that you're a writer and you do 
this other stuff?

Do you see part of your job as
building community in this way?

GEORGE:
I think i'll go with I'm a writer

and I do all this other stuff.

I do believe in the concept of giving 
back, I've been very fortunate.

There are a lot of things that go into
being successful in any chosen career.

But that's certainly true of a writer,
you have to have talent,

you have to persist,
and you have to have luck.

There are some great great books
out there and great writers who

have never achieved a large audience
who have never made that much money,

who have faced a lot of struggles.

I've been very lucky and I'm cognizant 
of that.

Not to say I haven't worked hard, I have.

Luck is part of it.

Robert A. Heinlen, the first Science Fiction
book that I ever read was

'Have Space Suit--Will Travel'
by Robert A. Heinlen,

and he was my favorite author
for many years.

He was probably the greatest
Science Fiction author of his day.

They called him the dean of
Science Fiction at one point.

Heinlen famously said "you can never
pay back the people who helped you

when you were starting out,
so you have to pay forward."

I've always taken that principal to mind,
I've tried to pay forward both inside

and outside of the genre.

Doing things like supporting Wild Spirit,
reviving the Jean Cocteau, and within

the field trying to blurp good books
by young writers who are just starting out

to get their books a little attention.

Helping writers workshops like Clarien and
Clarien West and Odyssey.

Sponsoring scholarships and all that,
that's a method of giving back and I think

there is an obligation on people
to do that, to engage in their communities.

I have two communities that I live in,
Santa Fe, New Mexico community,

where I make my home and also
the world Science Fiction and Fantasy

which I have been apart of since 1971
when I attended my fist convention.

I still go to world World Con every year
and attend the Hugo Awards, those are

my people and it almost feels like family 
to me so I try to give in both of those

communities.

EVE:
You travel exstensively,

you just came back from Ireland,
you're not going home for

a couple more weeks after being here,
but you also have said you really struggle

to write on planes, hotels, basically
anywhere that is not your home office.

That you need several uninterrupted days
to get into your groove.

How do you balance the part of being a
writer that is the writing,

with the part that is the profession,
coming to events like this,

knowing that it's gonna drain some
of the actual production.

GEORGE:
Well, that's a good question.

How do I balance them?
Badly I think.

My relationship with travel is an
interesting one, that I should probably

talk about with a therapist rather
than you people.

EVE:
No on'es listening we are just here

with our freinds.

GEORGE:
I was born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Which is a blue collar industrial city
right across the bay from New York City.

My father was a long shore man,
although he went through long periods

where he was unemployed.

My mother was a house wife when
I was young and later got a factory job

when factories were in Bayonne.

We never had much money, we lived
in a federal housing project.

We did not own a car, we never went
anywhere.

I lived on 1st street, my school was on
5th street, five blocks that was my world.

Bayonne was a peninsula and living on 1st
street was the Kilvon Cull

which is a deep water channel that
connected Newark bay and New York bay.

I would see these great ships, oil tankers
and freighters, things like that going by

day and night with all the flags of
the world on them.

Sweden, Liberia, China, so forth.

I had an encyclopedia where I could
look up every flag I saw.

There was this urge in me to get away
from the five blocks where my life was lived.

Occasionally we would go to New York City
to eat.

We never really traveled even like some
of the other people in the neighborhood did.

They would go to the Jersey Shore during
summer.

They would rent a cabin in the mountains,
we never did any of that we just stayed

home and worked.

So Travel has always been enticing to me.

As I became more and more successful.

First of all I went to North Western,
that was the first time

I ever left New Jersey.

The Midwest and Chicago and Evanston 
that was a whole new world to me.

Later when I became successful I started
going to Science Fiction magazines,

in far flung places like Boston
and Washington DC and all that.

Every city was an adventure for me,
eventually in 1981 I traveled to England.

I left the country for the first time.

As I became more successful, 
first within Science Fiction and later

in the larger world when the books
became best sellers and a hit

I started getting more and more
invitations to travel to places,

all expenses paid invitations.

Oh, they want to fly me to Vancouver,
that's cool, I'll say yes.

Oh look here's one where I can go to
Scotland, I can go to France,

I can go to Italy.

Honestly, I said yes too much.

I had a great time it was wonderful,
it enriched my life I learned a lot,

I made friends from all over the world,
but I said yes too much.

Now I have a staff that I've instructed
to try to say no as much as possible,

I have one of my assistants I call the 
Vice President in charge of saying no.

[laughter]

Sometimes I over rule her, I have my
publicist here sitting in the second row

trying hide who tells me to say no 
to everything because I should be staying

home and writing.

If I listened to him I wouldn't be here.

[luaghter]

I can't help it, I wanted to be here,
I wanted to come back to Chicago,

I wanted to, you know the
Carl Sandberg award was an amazing honor.

I wanted to be with you guys tonight.

It's true I've got to, and I'm really
trying, I'm saying no more and more,

I've said no to three things this week.

The invitations just keep pouring in.

Travel doesn't have quite the allure 
it previously did when I never went anywhere

so now they offer me money instead.

I'm saying no to that too,
I'm being good people.

[applause]

[laughter]

The one thing I never say no to is the
World Science Fiction convention, World Con.

Which I went to for the first time in 1971,
I go to that every year.

So that's why I was in Ireland last month,
for the World Con.

There is a lot of conventions on the
Science Fiction calendar, some of them

are better than others, all of them are
fun to some degree.

But World Con is the oldest of them,
it's where the Hugo awards are given.

It's where I see friends that I only see
once a year.

The Science Fiction fandom is like forever,
you go in there an meet people

who will be part of your life for the next
fifty years.

You may only see them once a year at
World Con but it's still great and

important to see them.

So that one I'll probably never say no to,
but I try to say no to a lot of the others.

At lest until 'Winds of Winter' is
finished, then you'll see me popping

around and popping up places.

EVE:
We're really grateful you said yes to us.

I know it's also cause you wanted to go to
Greek town and have some gyros,

which we talked about earlier.

GEORGE:
OPA!

EVE:
A lot of writers who have their work

adapted to film or television are not
really involved, they kind of hand it over,

sometimes that can create a distant or
adversarial relationship with the adaptation.

You are not like that, you've been a
producer on Game of Thrones and you've

also written scripts for some of the most 
iconic episodes, and I want to shout out

a few of them

You wrote "The Pointy End" which has this
amazing scene where Syrio Forel protects

Arya as she escapes and her life
is never the same.

Again this is a spoiler heavy zone,
so exits behind you if you need to leave.

You wrote that episode, that I love.

"Black Water" and incredibly epic battle,
that I think rivals Ministereth for

great on screen battles.

Where Tyrion proves himself to be a
capable military strategist.

We get lots of sweet dragon fire exploding.

"The Lion and the Rose" where we bid,
for some of us, a very gleeful farewell

to Jofrey.

We realize that we can see a minor die on
TV and we're somehow still happy about it.

[laughter]

At the same time, you're heavily involved
in the show, but you're still writing

this series and you reserve the right to
do what you want there autonomously

not based on peoples responses to the
TV series.

This is a long way of asking,
how do you see the relationship between

TV Westeros and fiction Westeros,
and how are you operating in both of

these worlds?

GEORGE:
Well, how many children did

Scarlet O'hara have?

EVE:
I'm the wrong one to ask that.

GEORGE:
She had three in Margaret Mitchell's novel.

She had one in the movie.

So how many children did she have?

I mean which is "right"?

The actual answer to that is a trick 
question of course.

It is that Scarlet O'hara had no children
because she is a fictional character

and never existed.

[laughter]

It's two different mediums and two
different ways of telling the same story,

or at least a similar story.

That's true whenever you adapt any work
from books to television or movies,

or even a radio play for that matter.

You have to make choices as to what 
you leave in what you take out,

there are issues that a television
producer or screen writer has that

a novelist does not have.

You have to worry about the budget,
you have to worry about the running time,

you have actors who have contracts that 
have to be serviced.

I could have a character like Theon Greyjoy
or Varis, disappear for entire books

and not be mentioned at all,
or perhaps be presumed dead,

they're off and you don't know what
they're doing.

You can't do that with a TV show,
the actors are under contract,

you're not gonna pay an actor for an
entire season and not have them

appear on screen.

Television and film have things at their 
disposal that the novelist does not have.

They can have a score like the wonderful
music we were hearing by Ramin Djawadi.

Our Emmy winning composer,
that reinforces the show.

We've got marvelous special effects 
and all that.

The novelist also has tools that the 
screen writer and the director don't have.

You can use an unreliable narrator, he has
the wonderful strength which I use very

heavily in 'A Song of Ice and Fire' of 
point of view.

The camera is completely objective,
it has no point of view.

The camera is showing you what happened.

When I write a scene from the view point
of Sansa I'm filtering everything through

Sansa's perceptions.

Sansa is only seeing what she is looking
at, if there is something behind her

she doesn't see it.

It's more difficult to write when you're
doing it with a camera.

So all of these things necessitate making
changes, making a different approach

That's what the process of adaptation
is about.

Then its up to the readers and the viewers
to decide which they like better.

They're both works of art.

Margaret Mitchell's novel is there, it can
be read, you can go see the 1939 movie,

if you take into account inflation and all
that it's still the highest grossing movie

of all time.

You can determine which you like better
and argue about how many children

she should have had.

There it is, its two different works
of art, related but not identical.

EVE:
Almost like alternate universe versions

of eachother.

Initially when people started showing 
interest in the series for television

you felt that the scale of it might be
beyond what could be represented on film.

Especially because of part of what you
just mentioned, the scope of your many

characters, the world, the complexity of
the plot.

What do you think was the X factor?

Is there something that changed or 
something that made it work

despite those challenges of the medium?

GEORGE:
I think HBO was of the X factor,

HBO was willing to let us make an adult
fantasy.

Fantasy books had been dominating the
best seller list for decades but,

whenever fantasy was done for TV for
Game of Thrones, they put it on at 8 o'clock

7 central.

It was in the family hour because the
people running television thought Fantasy

dragons and swords and stuff was something
silly, that it was for children.

HBO had enough faith to redefine at least
in terms of television, redefine the

fantasy genre.

That doesn't surprise me because you look
at what they did previously,

Deadwood, whole new take on westerns,
Sopranos, completely different take on

the gangster story.

HBO was in the business of redefining 
genres and inverting troupes and

turning them on their heads,
and they did it with Fantasy.

David Benioff and Dan Weiss the
show runners did an amazing job

and they assembled a great team.

Game of Thrones has won, at this point,
more Emmy's than any other show in the

history of television, prime time show
anway.

What's interesting about it is many many
many of those Emmy's are what they call

in Hollywood below the line,
they're for things like music, costuming,

casting, stunt work, all of these things, 
special effects.

All of these things are necessary to do a 
good thing.

A novelist doesn't have to worry about 
that, I can just write what the

costumes are, I don't have to worry
about that.

The show runner has to put together a 
team of people who can do it.

In the case of Game of Thrones with 
extraordinary passion and skill to

produce something that is really 
memorable and oustanding.

David Benioff and Dan Weiss did that,
they put together one of the greatest

production teams and casts and crews
in the entire history of television, I think.

EVE:
There are so many of those things that you

just mentioned that I could shout out
but the costuming in particular,

I'm thinking of Daenerys obviously
in the kind of progression of costuming

of the course of their personal
development as a character.

GEORGE:
Everything plays a role, all it takes is

one person to screw up and you know
you're watching the first episode of some

new fantasy show and it seems to be
promising and the dialogue is good,

and maybe the special effects are good, 
and then you spot a zipper,

and suddenly your suspension of disbelief
is out the window.

And you say "What the hell?" ya know?

They've lost you.

You have to get everything right.

Being a show runner of a major television
show is really a difficult achievement.

EVE:
You've mentioned in other interviews that

and early TV influence for your was
of course Star Trek and in that time

Gene Roddenberry's universe was more 
diverse than some of the universes we see

on contemporary television.

I know you're also producing an adaptation
of Nnedi Okorafor's "Who Fears Death?"

which is exciting for many many reasons
but one of them I think is that people

seem to have an increasing hunger for
sci-fi and fantasy and speculative fiction

that reflects the diversity of our world.

Is that something that's important to you
or something you're thinking about?

GEORGE:
I think we have to move in that direction.

I also think science fiction has always
done better the society in general,

not that its perfect by any means.

The science fiction I like best is, 
there's a lot of kinds of science fiction,

and fantasy.

Besides epic fantasy there is urban
fantasy, there's dark fantasy, there's

fairy tales, there's cyber punk in 
science fiction, there's space opera.

There are many many kinds of things.

The sort of science fiction that I grew
up on, that I love most of all,

was the stuff that was set out among
the stars.

Where we go to alien planets 100 years
in the future, 500 years in the future,

and meet aliens, strange life forms,
distant suns, it just appealed to me.

Maybe it was cause of that travel thing,
I liked the exotic flavors and to see

sights never seen before, to go places
no one had ever gone before.

What I didn't realize though when I was
reading, and I realized it as an adult

many decades later, is that the we that 
was going out in those star ships in the

science fiction that I read in the 50's
and 60's, they weren't Americans.

They weren't Chinese or Brazilian or French.

They were earth men, or earthlings,
or Terrans.

Those were the terms that were made.

If we were gonna meet the Octopus people 
of the third planet of Vega it would be

Terrans meeting them and we would be 
part of the solar alliance or the united

planets or something like that.

Some of the authors of the time made a
deliberate effort at diversity, maybe they

didn't entirely succeed but you look at 
someone like Paul Anderson and he would

have Scotsman and Irishmen but also
Polynesians and Brazilians.

Elspreg D'camp wrote a whole series in
which Brazil was the dominate power of

23rd century Earth.

So that message was always there, it was
there in the pulp magazines and the early

science fiction.

Gene Roddenberry brought it to television.

The original Star Trek had some good
episodes, and it had some really bad

episodes but it was very exciting to see
it at the time.

Roddenberry was immensely courageous if
nothing else, maybe he wasn't the greatest

writer to come down the pike or the 
greatest show runner but you look back

at the show that came out in 1767,
he put a black woman on the bridge

as communications engineer, he put
an Asian as helms man.

He put a Russian, at the height of the 
cold war, on the bridge.

He was selling the idea that his
federation, Earth has put aside all of its

differences and we'd all come together
as a single people.

Maybe, most shocking of all was Spock.

You think of Spock as a Vulcan, he wasn't
a Vulcan, he was a half-breed,

he was half Vulcan and he was half
human.

He had green blood and two hearts,
a Vulcan father and a human mother,

if you're a hard science fiction writer
this makes no fucking sense, we're not

going to actually be able to interbreed
with the Octopus people of Vega,

it doesn't work that way, any more than we
can impregnate wombats here on earth.

[laughter]

None the less, whats striking about Spock
when this came out in 1967 is the fact

that at the time he was doing this
miscegenation was still against the law

in half the states of the United States.

This was before Loving vs. Virginia which
was the famous case recently dramatized

in a movie, that established that a white
man could actually marry a black woman.

That was against the law, interracial
marriage, having children with people of

another race, and he's having half breed
Vulcans.

It was enormously progressive at the time.

I didn't really noticed it because I had
been reading about that stuff for

a long time but looking back on it now
and realizing books that sell 3,000 copies

are one thing but a television show
that reaches 20 30 million people

really influences us.

They really reflect us.

Now, in science fiction and fantasy we are
seeing a great up swell of diverse voices.

By many different sorts of people,
different skin colors, different religions,

different sexual orientations,
they're producing their own takes on this.

As with any other groups some of them are
good some of them are not so good,

but I think it's a healthy sign for the
genre.

I do hope that there's still room for
some old white guys like me.

EVE:
You can stay there is room at the table.

GEORGE:
Good.

EVE:
There's only two seats here so we'll

see how it goes.

[laughter]

EVE:
I'm going to ask you one or two more

questions and then I'll go to these fan
questions.

GEORGE:
Great.

EVE:
I think my final question will be this,

you are a very frequently and many times
interviewed person,

you've been interviewed a lot.

What is the interview question that 
wish people would ask, and what is

the one that you do not like,
or that you loath the most with

apologies to those who have previously 
asked this question including me if

I'm one of the people, it's not personal
it's just that I'm asking.

So a question you wish people would ask,
and a question you hate the most.

GEORGE:
Obviously these days the question I hate

the most is when will 'Winds of Winter'
be out.

[laughter]

Because I have no good answer for that.

When the day comes that 'Winds of Winter'
is done and I can say, and I can when

asked that question, October.

That will a happier time for me.

It's no fun to be asked repeatedly
the same question over and over again,

and you don't have a good answer for it.

There are a lot of questions, I won't say
I hate them but I've been asked them so

often that it gets a little tiresome.

It also shows that however much the person
may be a huge fan of mine they've

never actually gone online and looked
at any of the 137 other interviews of me

that you can find on youtube.

Which is your favorite character, which
character do you like to write the most,

which character do you like to write the
least?

Ya know I've been answering that question
since 1996.

There are a number of questions that fall
in that category.

As to a question that I want to be asked,
that's harder,

I don't think I have one question.

I do like the fact that in your questions
you've discussed some things other than

Game of Thrones, I love Game of Thrones,
I love 'Song of Ice and Fire' but I do

have a long history of writing other
things and I'm very happy and proud

of those things too.

It's fun to discuss things that I haven't
been asked about before.

To talk about Fever Dream or Armageddon
Rag or the Wild Card series,

or Dying of the Light, or any of my
short stories that I've written

over the years.

EVE:
Good, I'm glad that if you hated one of

my questions you're keeping it to yourself
for the time being.

[laughter]

It's very polite of you.

OK so I'm gonna ask you some fan questions,
for which I can only moderately vouch

for the quality, after having had asked
you that last question.

GEORGE:
Should I be afraid?

EVE:
No I think these are all fine,

I'm going to take my glasses off.

OK so, Brendan B. Fish, I presume not
his real name on Twitter asks,

"Speaking personally, do you believe that 
Robert, Ned, and Jon Aron were justified

in their rebellion against the Mad King,
if it were you would you have stayed loyal

to the Targaryens?"

People in the audience are freaked out 
by this question for some reason.

[laughter]

GEORGE:
I don't think I would have stayed loyal to

the mad king.

Do I think I would justify it?

Ya, yes and no.

I don't like to provide easy answers to 
that, I like to make the reader wrestle

with the question and think about it.

Because some of these questions never are
easy when we encounter them in real life.

It's been interesting coming back here to
Chicago,

because I spent ten years in Chicago and
the Chicago area,

I was at North Western from 1966 to 1971,
up in Evanston.

Then I was in Chicago from 71 to 76.

If you look at that era, particularly 
the early part of that era, the 60's.

It was sometimes known in the history
books, for you young people who have read

about it in history as the turbulent 60's.

There was an altercation going down in
Vietnam that some of us didn't like,

there were a lot of protests and
demonstrations, people in the streets

by the tens of thousands by the hundreds
of thousands in some cases.

I look back on that era now and ya know,
I ask myself that question,

were the protests justified, did we do the
right thing, did we do the wrong thing,

should we have gone further?

I was very much a clean for Gene guy,
I still believed in the American system

and elections and let's elect Gene McCarthy

and put an end to the Vietnam war,

and there were more radical people who
wanted to destroy the state

and tear it all down and rebuild it.

When I look at all the things that
happened, I don't know,

it was a confused time and its still
a confusing time when you

look back at history.

Maybe 100 years from now when everybody
who participated are dead,

we'll be able to sort it out
and find the answers.

Is violence ever justified to oppose
evil in the world, if so,

to what extent is violence justified?

These are the questions that Ned
and Robert had to deal with.

There was no doubt that the mad king 
was mad.

He was paranoid and violent
and he was abusing his power.

Westeros has no magna carta or 
anything like that.

There was no way to handle this within
the rule of law.

Was what they did justified?

Especially when you consider that it was 
triggered by a personal grievance.

The execution of Ned's father and brother,
was really a thing that radicalized,

as we would have said in the 60's,
Ned and put him in opposition to it.

Robert was just broiling for a fight,
and didn't like the fact that he lost

his girlfriend.

The personal informs the political.

As a reader I like the writers who ask
questions and get you to think.

I try to do that as a writer.

I don't necessarily like the writers who 
give answers.

Often I don't agree with the answers 
they seem wrong to me in some cases,

or they seem overly simplistic.

Questioning is important.

Theodore Sturgeon, who was one of the
great great science fiction writers

of the golden age, a real individualist,
and free thinker, I think.

He had a slogan which was called
"Ask the next question",

and he wore it, he had a medallion 
that he wore with a big Q with

an arrow through it that stood for
"Ask the next question.",

I always admired Sturgeon and his
views on that.

EVE:
Your answer about not giving answers

was a very good answer.

[laughter]

GEORGE:
Thank you!

EVE:
Leah Rachel Von Essen writes to the

humanities festival,

"I'm inspired by Sansa's character," 
She wrote books only, in parenthesis.

"I'm inspired by Sansa's character
and the way she her soft skills

aren't denigrated even as Arya is
the more classic strength warrior,

do you think they parallel each other
and how does their relationship

mirror the dynamics of real life sibling
relationships?"

GEORGE:
Well I hope that they are both realistic

characters in some sense.

I've known people who are like both 
of them

and in some sense I'm like both
of them.

We're talking about two of my women
characters, girls in that case.

I've been asked about writing the girls,
and women in my books.

I have the advantage in 
'A Song of Ice and Fire',

is that I have a lot of women.

Therefore, I can do a lot of different
women characters.

In an interview that I did in Canada
a number of years ago,

the host asked me how do I write
women characters and I said well,

I had this revolutionary idea,
I act as if women were people.

[laughter]

[applause]

That's my feeling.

If you have a book and you only have
one woman character,

sometimes there is not room for any
more because you're writing a short story.

Or a novel that only has three or
four main characters.

People sometimes take it as oh that's
his opinion of women or something,

because this character has these flaws.

But you have an advantage when you
have twenty women characters

that you can show the variety of people,
some of them are noble, some of them

are selfish, some of them are smart,
some of them are stupid,

I think that's true of all groups,
men, women, straight people, gay people,

whatever color.

They come in all varieties and even
the individuals have good and evil

within them.

I think that's realistic, and I think
we're all grey.

We all have good and bad in us,
we've all done good things

and we've all done bad things.

Real history is full of stories about
people who did something wonderful on

Tuesday and something horrible on
Thursday, same person.

There is a wonderful writer who passed
away a few years ago,

not a science fiction writer but,
Pat Conroy,

have any of you ever read Pat Conroy?

[applause]

Terrific writer, one of the great writers
I think of the 20th century.

A lot of his books were made into movies,
"The Great Santini", "The Water is Wide"

which was made into the movie "Conrack",
based on his own experiences teaching

the words of discipline.

Probably the best known books of his is
"The Prince of Tides",

I remember that book, that book has a 
character in it who is an absolutely

abusive father, he terrorized his children
he abuses them both verbally

and physically.

He's horrible to his wife,
he's really a despicable, horrible person.

But there are flashbacks within that to
World War II,

about an American aviator flying a mission
over Nazi Germany who was shot down

he parachutes out to safety but now
he's in the middle of Nazi Germany

and he has to get all the way back
to the lines.

He makes his way through the German
lines, hiding in haystacks, and

occasionally meeting Germans who try to
turn him in, and then other Germans who

are kind to him and hide him.

It's an interesting secondary story line.

It's the same character, and you realize
as you read this,

you're reading this story about this
brave American aviator trying make his way

through the Nazi's and to get back to the 
lines and you're really rooting for him

and you're identifying with him 
and you think he's great,

and then you get to the present day
and he's this horrible wretched person,

based on Conrad's own father,
who was mistreating his family.

I loved that, I loved that depth
of character there.

It was amazing, the fact that Conrad 
did it so greatly.

That's some of my views on characters.

Arya and Sansa, indeed many of my 
characters, are complicated people.

I try to show all of the complexities.

I don't want it to be just one note.

Arya is certainly more popular than Sansa.

Sansa has her people who love her too,
of course we'll have to see when I

write the book, the end that I have
in mind for both of them.

EVE:
Wow, yes, it takes me back to the point

that you made earlier about length,
and one benefit is we can actually see

that character transformation,
even over the course of a single novel,

we can see this character begin in
one condition and end somewhere else.

Another question, this is from
Lucifer means light bringer,

which I also assume is not this persons
government name.

[laughter]

"You've created several notable in world,
mythical figures which seem to serve

as archetypes that other main characters
echo at times,

can you say a few words about your use
of myth and internal folk lore and

the way those things interact with the
main story and characters?"

GEORGE:
Ya I've had a lot of fun, it's part of the

world building process.

Every world, every culture has its
myths, has its legends, has its heroes.

I suspect everybody in this room,
even if you haven't read the books,

knows who Robin Hood was or 
a little about him, or King Arthur.

Or maybe some of the American myths, 
Paul Bunion.

EVE:
Or Spider-Man or Super Man.

GEORGE:
Right, right.

We refer to them occasionally,
we make references to them.

It's sometimes amazing to think of the 
extent to which some of these

ancient myths and ancient characters
permeate our culture.

We watch football as somebody blows out
his Achilles tendon,

we're referring to a character from Homer.

If he existed at all he existed 3,000
years ago.

Ya know, and his only vulnerability
was his heel.

And because of that we're talking about
an injury to a football player.

It's amazing.

So, a mythical world,
obviously I can't reference Achilles,

or Paul Bunion or Spider-Man,
but has to have its own heroes,

and its own legends.

I try to put them in to give that flavor.

I had a lot of, I don't know how many of
you have read my latest Westeros book,

'Fire and Blood'.

[applause]

'Fire and Blood' was a little different
because it's not part of 'A Song of Ice and Fire'

It's a fake history book,
imaginary history.

About the first 150 years of the 
Targaryen dynasty.

It's written in world, it's written by
archmaester Gyldyan at the citadel,

three hundred years after many of the
events which he is chronicaling.

So like a real historian, like someone
writing now about the American revolution,

well he wasn't there for the American 
revolution he has to go back and look

at primary sources.

So did archmaester Gyldayn,
and what you find out when you do that

is that primary sources disagree.

They have different versions of events,
one person said it happened this way

another person says no that never 
happened it happened this way.

Archmaester Gyldayn trying to be a good 
historian is replicating all

of the different versions.

That was a lot of fun for me because
I could play with

the whole concept of history.

History being told by the winners,
history being cleaned up and

made politically correct, 
or religiously correct,

and I could present different versions
of the various stories.

I enjoyed that and I think some
of my readers enjoyed that too.

Particularly the version of history told
by Mushroom the court fool.

Who always told everything in the most
sexual lascivious and shocking

way possible.

Usually with himself as the hero.

EVE:
And you have a history degree,

so that's helpful.

GEORGE:
Well not a history degree,

but a history minor.

I love history, I read a lot of it.

I'm not a historian by any means,
I'm just a history nerd.

EVE:
So I'm going to give our final question

to someone named Adam Prestigicomo,
who wants to know,

oh what up you're here,
did I say your last name kind of right?

Oh great, nailed it.

Our good friend Adam wants to know,
"what is something that makes you happy?"

[applause]

[laughter]

GEORGE:
There are a lot of things

that make me happy.

I love books, reading a good book 
makes me happy.

I've been reading since I was a small kid
I still read veraciously.

I read a chapter or two from a book
almost every night.

Every once and a while I pick up
a book where I read that chapter or two

and then I have to read another chapter
and another chapter and another chapter.

I wind up staying up all night,
I love it when that happens.

I love good movies, I love good television.

The kinds that get their hooks into me
and I have to binge all on Netflix.

I actually kind of hate the concept of
binging but I find myself doing it anyway.

[laughter]

As my waste line will testify 
I love good food.

Especially Greek food in Chicago, Opa Opa!

Great barbecue when I'm in Texas.

In New Mexico where I live,
I moved to New Mexico in 1979 and I can

never leave because I became
addicted to green chille.

Which you can really on get in New Mexico.

Someone there knows the truth of what 
I speak.

You'll probably all boo me for this but 
of course pizza in New York.

EVE:
It is what it is.

GEORGE:
So I love all that.

And I love writing my own stories,
particularly I love finishing them.

[laughter]

I actually don't love, I mean people say
do I enjoy writing,

EVE:
No one likes writing.

GEORGE:
Writing is hard.

EVE:
Writing sucks.

[laughter]

GEORGE:
I'm constantly questioning myself every

sentence I put down I wonder whether
its good enough.

I reread what I wrote yesterday
and I hate it.

But when I actually finish a book, 
the rush that comes through me,

it was easier to write short stories
cause then I would get that rush

every few weeks but now I get that rush
every eight years or something like that.

[laughter]

It's a great rush, and I'm hoping to
have it again in the relatively near future.

When I finish 'Winds of Winter',
I do know that the day after

'Winds of Winter' comes out I'll get
the first text saying,

when is 'Dream of Spring' coming out?

[laughter]

So, ya know, these pleasures are temporary.

There's a lot of things I love,
I love the people in my life.

I've been very fortunate.

I have my wonderful wife Paris 
who unfortunately couldn't be with me

on this trip.

I have an amazing staff of minions
who serve me.

One of them, Sid is here with me tonight.

Four or five others are at home,
they try to keep my working,

and try to keep the distractions at bay.

I love my publishers David Munch,
who didn't want me to come here.

[laughter]

And my editor Anne Groll,
and my wonderful publishers.

There's a lot of things that make me happy,
thank you.

[applause]

EVE:
Well, George R. R. Martin,

it has made me very happy to have
the chance to speak with you

and I think I speak for a lot of people in
the audience who share that sentiment.

Please give one more round of applause
to George R. R. Martin.

[applause]