The Chicago Public Library and Chicago Public Library Foundation will honor George R.R. Martin, the recipient of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, and Dr. Eve L. Ewing, winner of the 21st Century Award at the Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner  on October 10.

Fantasy and science fiction writer George R. R. Martin, best known for his epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire that inspired HBO’s critically acclaimed, multi-Emmy award-winning series Game of Thrones will receive the 2019 Carl Sandburg Literary Award. In 2005, Lev Grossman of Time called Martin “the American Tolkien”, and in 2011, GRRM was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. Martin earned a B.S. and M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Education sociologist Dr. Eve L. Ewing, will be recognized with the 21st Century Award which honors significant recent achievements in writing by an author with ties to Chicago. Ewing is the author of published nonfiction, fiction, plays, and poetry including the widely acclaimed Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side (2018), Electric Arches (2017). Her new book 1919, explores the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 through poems recounting the stories

Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2019, the Carl Sandburg Literary Award has recognized the work of the world’s most heralded authors, with past winners including Isabel Allende, Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, Robert Caro, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Don DeLillo, Roger Ebert, Dave Eggers, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Nikki Giovanni, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Walter Isaacson, Erik Larson, Michael Lewis, David Mamet, David McCullough, Larry McMurtry, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Salman Rushdie, Stephen Sondheim, Mavis Staples, Scott Turow, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, and Tom Wolfe.

[Via Locus Online.]