Game of Thrones author will sponsor place at Clarion West Writers Workshop to ‘help the next great fantasist on the long journey ahead’
Citing his belief that “these days, the world [has] more need of wonder than ever before”, George RR Martin has embarked on a quest to help create a new generation of inspiring authors, by funding a scholarship for those with ambitions to create fantasy worlds.
Stating that the best epic fantasy “requires a memorable setting … a world both like and unlike our own, with its own rich history and geography and customs, its own beauties and terrors”, the Game of Thrones author has announced that he is to sponsor an aspiring science fiction and fantasy author to learn how to build their own “imagined landscape”. Martin’s annual “Worldbuilder” scholarship will fund a writer to take up a place on the six-week writing course at the Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle. The winner, who will be selected each year in a blind judging process, will “not be limited by age, race, sex, religion, skin colour, place of origin or field of study”, said Martin, and will demonstrate “both financial need and a talent for worldbuilding and the creation of secondary universes”.
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