For all those who can’t seem to get enough of me talking… and were not able to make our COLONY event at the Jean Cocteau Cinema… IGN has uploaded a video of my conversation with COLONY’s co-creator Ryan Condal.
Have a look… and do check out the show. It’s good.
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Amazing week back east.
Thanks to our friends at HBO, we got to see Alan Cummings in CABARET. Incredible. The movie is an all time favorite of mine, but this was the first time I've seen it live on stage. Hard to believe anyone could equal the performance of Joel Grey as the emcee, but Cummings does it… thought his take is very different. We had great seats too. A night to remember.
Next day I took off to Providence with Tom Doherty, for an evening at Brown University, where both of us were honored with their new literary award. I have passed through Providence dozens of times on the Acela, travelling from Boston to NYC, but this was the first time I got off the train. It's a beautiful city, though, and the Brown campus is gorgeous. For those of you were not able to attend, here's a video:
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My thanks to the good folks at Brown, and all the students who attended the event and the reception afterwards (which was great fun, albeit too short). While in Providence, I also got to visit the grave of H.P. Lovecraft… who, sadly, failed to rise from the dead to greet us.
Then it was back to New York, with a brief stop in New Haven for pizza. This trip we tried Modern Apizza, which has its fans. Pretty good, I thought, but not as good as Frank Pepe's.
Come the weekend, I spent Saturday with my family in Bayonne. On Sunday, we had tickets to the Jets game. The horror, the horror. What can I possibly say about the Jets game? The Jets turned over the ball six times. Could have been eight, but they recovered two of their own fumbles. Geno Smith threw three interceptions in the first quarter alone. Geno is hopeless. Rex finally went with Michael Vick, who was better… but Vick is not the answer either. He's on the downside of his career. Rex should give Matt Simms a shot. I miss Sanchez. I miss Chad Pennington. I miss Joe Willie Namath. Anyway, it was a painful morning, made worse by the fact that we seemed to be sitting among the Buffalo fans, all of them cheering wildly every time the Jets screwed up. (That being said, two of the Buffalo fans were fans of mine. They said hello when I finally gave up and got up to flee… and refrained from pouring salt in my wounds, which was very kind of them).
Sunday night was much better. That was the big event at the 92nd Street Y to launch THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE. A full house, and all of them went home with a copy of the book. Here's the video for that one:
http://new.livestream.com/92Y/GeorgeRRMartinLive
On our last day, I appeared on LATE NIGHT with Seth Meyers, which was a hoot and a half, especially since Amy Poehler was there as well.
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Of course, I also signed a thousand books, did interviews with New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Al-Jazeera America, and George Stephanopoulos, had dinner with my editors and publishers at Bantam, lunch with HBO, some Papaya King dogs with X-Ray and Mr X, breakfasts with friends from DC Comic, Barnes & Noble, and Simon & Schuster…
And while I was there, I had not one but TWO new books come out, and immediately hit the bestseller lists.
Weeks like that don't come very often.
(Nonetheless, as always, it is great to be back in Santa Fe. Coming back to New Mexico is always a joy).
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Here are some more interviews, from my summer travels.
First, one more from San Diego Comicon, this one mainly about the Avengers and their profound i
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From the Edinburgh Book Festival:
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Here's one from London, before worldcon.
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More London, after worldcon:
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And here's a big one, my post-con event with Jane Johnson and Robin Hobb at London's Freemason Hall:
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Last, but definitely not least, is a radio interview I did with Mahvesh Murad, a charming young journalist / dj/ talk show host from Pakistan. What made this one fresh and different was that Mahvesh invited me to select ten favorite songs to play during the program. That was a lot of fun, and surprisingly hard: I could easily have come up with fifty songs. Anyway, check this one out, and you will also get to hear some great bands and singers, and some songs that, for one reason or another, have inspired and influenced me.
https://soundcloud.com/cityfm89/georgerrmartin-on-89-chapters-with-mahvesh
Happy listening.
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For those of you who cannot get enough of me pontificating, here are some more videos from those months of interviews I've done, all snatched off of YouTube. Let's see, there are a couple of Red Carpet interviews from this year's Emmy weeks, and a long panel with William Christensen of Avatar Press about my roots in comic fandom (and my new Avatar comic adaptation, IN THE HOUSE OF THE WORM).
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I can't give you an exact count… but I must have done at least fifty interviews over the past two months. Maybe as many as a hundred.
Radio interviews, TV interviews, magazine and newspaper interviews, private interviews, group interviews, public interviews… in France, in Switzerland, in Scotland, in London, in San Diego, and most recently in LA, on the Red Carpet for the Emmys.
On some of the foreign trips, I did entire days of interviews. They would park me in a hotel suite, usher in a journalist or a film crew, we'd talk for a half hour, then my hosts would escort that reporter out, and bring in a new one. Some of the journalists were very sharp. Some… ah… weren't. (A few made me wonder what the hell has happened to the standards of the profession that I once got my degrees in, back at Northwestern.)
Sitting around a hotel room talking doesn't sound so hard, but it can be grueling. Especially when they all ask the same damn questions.
(Tyrion is my favorite character. Okay? OKAY? Can we PLEASE put that one to rest?? I love all my viewpoint characters, Arya and Sansa and Bran, Jon Snow and Brienne, Arianne and Cersei and Jaime, Theon, even Victarion and the Damphair, ALL of them, but I love Tyrion the bestest. Tyrion son of Tywin, the Imp, second son of Casterly Rock. How many bloody times do I need to say it?? I swear, from now on, whenever anybody asks me, "who is you favorite character," I am going to start naming characters from other people's books. Cugel the Clever. Flashman. Gatsby. Hotspur. Solomon Kane. A different one each time… )
But I digress.
Anyway… I did the interviews, so I might as well share them as they come up.
Did a whole bunch in Neuchatel at NIFFF, as I said. Journalists from Switzerland, France, Germany all came. The worst of those…. well, that one most of you have seen, I suspect, it's the one where I gave the guy the finger.
Here's a much better one, an in-depth piece that actually covers some ground about my life and writing that hasn't been covered a thousand times before. If that's of interest to you, you may enjoy it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/song-of-ice-and-fire-author-george-rr-martin-on-success-chess-and-the-wrath-of-superfans-9652448.html
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Yadda yadda… here's more for those of you who could not be at Comicon.
This was a special fan Q&A session sponsored by Courtyard Marriott. Great fun.
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Here's the latest interview with Yours Truly, from Focus on New Mexico KNME.
(I must have done a hundred interviews in San Diego, but this one was done earlier, at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe).
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For those of you who were unable to travel to Switzerland for NIFFF, Livestream has uploaded my "Master Class" interview and Q&A.
NIFFF was great fun, all in all, though they kept me so busy that I was only able to see one film of the ninety-plus shown at the festival. Most of the interviews covered the same old ground… but the masterclass got into some areas a bit more substantially, and you may find it interesting.
I had fun doing it, anyway.
If you would like to check it out, go to:
http://new.livestream.com/nifff/GeorgeRRMartinMasterclass
Enjoy.
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Life just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
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(I wish I COULD buy five copies for my mother, but alas, she passed away in 1998).
This is pretty cool. Even without the cover.
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Last month I did a local television interview with Lorene Mills, of REPORT FROM SANTA FE.
For those of you who cannot get enough of me talking, here's the link:
http://reportfromsantafe.com/episodes/view/211/george-r-r-martin-author-game-of-thrones/
Lorene has had a very eclectic guest list over the years. A lot of New Mexico politicians, to be sure, but also artists, writers, and even stranger types.
She's a big Peter S. Beagle fan as well, and interviewed him when he was here a few weeks back with THE LAST UNICORN.
Speaking of which:
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