The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination will present an evening on the craft of writing science fiction and fantasy with George R. R. Martin (“A Song of Ice and Fire,” adapted for television as Game of Thrones, the Wild Card series) in conversation with Kim Stanley Robinson (New York 2140, the Mars trilogy). Shelley Streeby, faculty director of the Clarion Workshop, will moderate. All proceeds will support the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop at UC San Diego, the oldest and most highly regarded training ground for new science fiction and fantasy authors. George R. R. Martin, a former Clarion Workshop instructor, is arguably the most prominent fantasy writer since Tolkien. He sold his first story in 1971 and has been writing professionally since then. He spent ten years in Hollywood as a writer-producer, working on The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and television pilots that were never made. In the mid-1990s he returned to prose, his first love, and began work on his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, adapted for HBO as Game of Thrones. He has been in the Seven Kingdoms ever since. Whenever he’s allowed to leave, he returns to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He also edited and oversees the Wild Cards series, currently being adapted for television. Kim Stanley Robinson is an American writer of speculative science-fiction and winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the World Fantasy Award. He has published over twenty books of science fiction, translated into 24 languages, including the award-winning Mars trilogy, and been hailed as “our greatest political novelist” by the New Yorker. Time magazine named him a “Hero of the Environment” in 2008, and in 2012 his novel 2312 was a New York Times bestseller. His most recent novel is New York 2140. He is a graduate of both UC San Diego and the Clarion Workshop, as well as a former Clarion instructor. This craft conversation is a fundraiser to support the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, including an extensive scholarship program to assist students who would otherwise be unable to attend. Founded in 1968, Clarion is the oldest and most highly regarded training ground for new science fiction and fantasy authors. Each summer for six weeks, top established authors descend on La Jolla to provide guidance and feedback to eighteen students, selected from hundreds of applicants for their promise. These students have gone on to win numerous Nebula and Hugo awards, among other honors, and notable alumni include Kelly Link, Octavia Butler, Robert Crais, Cory Doctorow, Nalo Hopkinson, and Bruce Sterling, who selflessly give back to the writing program and community that gave them their start. Past instructors in the workshop include: Kelly Link, Saladin Ahmed, Neil Gaiman, Nalo Hopkinson, Christopher Barzac, Kij Johnson, Cory Doctorow, Karen Joy Fowler, Jeffrey Ford, Geoff Ryman, Victor LaValle, N.K. Jemison (whose The Fifth Season won the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novel), Jeff Vandermeer (whose Southern Reach Trilogy is currently being made into a major motion picture), Elizabeth Bear, and Samuel Delany. Since 2007, the Clarion Workshop has been hosted at UC San Diego, which itself boasts a record of producing more science fiction authors than almost any other university, among them Kim Stanley Robinson and David Brin. In that time, writers who came through the program have gone on to incredible success, including Alyssa Wong (Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner, Campell Award for Best New Writer nominee), Carmen Maria Machado (Nebula & Shirley Jackson Award nominee), Bo Bolander (Hugo Award Nominee), Sam Miller (Shirley Jackson Award Winner), and Jessica Cluess (novel published by Random House), among other notable alumni. Students in the program come from around the world—the Philippines, Italy, UK, Spain, India, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia—as well as represent a diverse cross-section of the United States. Note: Books will be available for purchase at this event, but Mr. Martin will not be available for signing.