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A Game of Agents

Home > MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds > A Game of Agents

George R. R. Martin believed in his literary agent when times were hard. Britt Aamodt reports how that agent, a Minnesotan, repaid that loyalty when Martin came to him with a new manuscript.

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Producer: Britt Aamodt

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood

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Transcript

Welcome to MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds.

George R. R. Martin wasn’t happy. He was a short story writer and novelist. But his books weren’t making him rich. So by 1991, he was schlepping his talents in Hollywood.
He was a TV script writer, which sounded more glamorous than it was. Martin had a prodigious imagination that was always being pruned to fit someone else’s storyline or to appease a TV network afraid of losing advertisers.
So that’s why it was so thrilling for Martin to sit down and write for himself. He imagined a fantasy world populated by dire wolves, white walkers, dragons and warring houses fighting for control of the Iron Throne.
In 1994, he shared the first 200 pages of this novel-in-progress with Kirby McCauley, his literary agent from Minnesota who’d lately fallen on hard times. His biggest client, Stephen King, had fired him. Other authors had followed suit.
But Martin believed in him. And the agent proved him right, by securing a sweet publishing deal that allowed Martin to quit his TV job and finish the first book in what would become his blockbuster book and later HBO series Game of Thrones.

MN90 is produced by AMPERS, Minnesota's community radio stations, made possible by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Online at MN90.org.