George R.R. Martin, the famed author behind the “Game of Thrones” series, has donated $5 million to Northwestern University to create a writing workshop and a professorship.
A $3 million gift will establish the George R.R. Martin Summer Intensive Writing Workshop at the university’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. And $2 million will fund an endowed professorship, the George R.R. Martin Chair in Storytelling, to lead the workshop.
The workshop, launching in 2024, will enroll six to eight writers and authors each summer.
“George R.R. Martin is a prolific and iconic author with an international audience,” Northwestern President Michael Schill said in a statement announcing the gift. “We are so grateful for his generosity to his alma mater, which will inspire and equip the next generation of storytellers at Northwestern.”
Martin, 74, wrote the best-selling fantasy series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which inspired the HBO’s Emmy Award-winning series “Game of Thrones.” He attended Northwestern and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1970 and a master’s in journalism in 1971.
Northwestern University awarded Martin the Medill Hall of Achievement alumni award in 2015. Martin has also received the Chicago-based 2019 Carl Sandburg Literary Award.
Charles Whitaker, dean of Medill, said the writers workshop “will enable us to recruit, retain and host recognized authors and storytellers for the benefit of Northwestern students and writers from around the country. These initiatives will help aspiring writers across myriad literary genres to make their mark on the world, as George has done.”
