'Game of Thrones' author George R.R. Martin to be featured guest at Nacogdoches Film Festival

NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) - Fans of the HBO series, “Game of Thrones” might want to pencil the Nacogdoches Film Festival in on their 2015 calendars.

Earlier this week, organizers of the upcoming Nacogdoches Film Festival, which is scheduled for Feb. 26-28, 2015, announced that novelist, screenwriter, and producer George R.R. Martin will be the event's featured guest and a panelist.

Martin got his start in writing early, according to the film festival's Website.

“He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included,” the Website stated. “Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines.”

In 1971, Martin sold his first short story, “The Hero.” The story was published in “Galaxy.” The author continued to publish short stories until he published his debut novel, “Dying of the Light” in 1976.

“While he became well regarded in the fantasy and science fiction worlds, Martin had yet to achieve a huge commercial success by the 1980s,” the Website stated.

After he worked as a story editor for the remake of “Twilight Zone” in 1986, Martin got involved with the TV series, “Beauty and the Beast.” However, writing for television had its own challenges, the Website stated.

“Whenever I would turn in a script, the producers would always say to me, ‘George, this is wonderful, but it would cost five times our budget to produce it,'” Martin said in a National Public Radio interview.

Martin started a new writing project in the 1990s, a fantasy series inspired by medieval England's War of the Roses.

“The first installment of “A Song of Ice and Fire” may not have been an overnight success, but the strong word of mouth boosted sales as the series progressed,” the film festival's Website stated. “By the fourth volume, 2005's “A Feast for Crows,” Martin found his work at the top of the best-sellers list. His books were introduced to an even larger audience with the critically acclaimed television adaptation of “Game of Thrones,” which debuted in 2011.

The fifth novel in his series, “A Dance With Dragons,” also hit the bestseller list.

“While often compared to J. R. R. Tolkien, Martin writes a grittier, earthier type of fantasy fiction than the man who created “The Lord of the Rings,” the Website stated. “Martin's Westeros is mainly populated by humans who live morally complex lives and follow their own agendas.”

The film festival will feature workshops, panel discussions, showings of the winning short films from 2014, showings of the following feature films: “Tomato Republic,” “Cold in July,” “By the Hair of the Head,” and “Road to Austin,” question and answer sessions, and the announcement of the 2015 Shorts Awards.

The Nacogdoches Film Festival's events will be held at various locations on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus and in Nacogdoches, including the Cole Art Center, the SFA University Center Movie Theater, Carmike 6, and the Nacogdoches Chamber of Commerce.

For more information on the Nacogdoches Film Festival, visit this link.

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