George R. R. Martin received plenty of interest when he started a crowdfunding campaign for a wolf sanctuary that promised the top donors would get to be killed by him in his next book.
All you had to do to be in with a chance of dying was to donate $20,000 to the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary and Food Depot in Martin's adopted hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and despite the steep price, the two spots for those who will meet their text-based end in The Wind of Winter have already been filled by willing participants.
However, one young fan wrote a letter to Martin asking him if it would be possible, even though he doesn't quite have the necessary funds, to put him in the book, and the folks at Mashable got their hands on it.
Pic via Mashable
While Jack is honest enough to say that he's not allowed to watch some parts of the show (probably all that stuff with the killing and most of the bits where people have no clothes on, we hope), he does add that he's still a big fan and he too loves wolves, he even hopes to become a conservationist one day. Included in the letter was a donation of all his pocket money (£153) to the wolf sanctuary because he loves the creatures so much.
Martin was apparently hugely moved by the letter and donation, so although he wasn't able to give the young fan a spot in the book to fulfill his request of a "gruesome, grizzly death", he did send him a personal response, with a pretty fantastic gesture thrown in for good measure.
"Dear Jack,
Thank you so much for your heartfelt, touching note.
I’ve heard that you donated all your £153 pocket money savings to my Prizeo fundraiser on behalf of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary. I cannot tell you how much that moved me. It pleases me no end to know that my novels, and the TV series based on them, have inspired readers as young as yourself to rally to the support of these majestic and too often stigmatized animals
Alas, I cannot promise you a grisly death in THE WIND OF WINTER. Those spots have already been filled by some very generous donors, and there’s a limit to how many people even I can kill.
However, inspired by your example, my friends at Prizeo and I would love to follow your lead with a $10,000 in your name to the UK Wolf Conservation Trust. That’s a wonderful organization that I've heard much about, and they are lucky to count people like you as supporters.
I wish you the best of luck in your future career as a wolf conservationist, and hope that you inspire many others to follow your lead.
Yours,
GRRM"
Both pieces of correspondence were made public by Prizeo, who are running the campaign and have already raised over $450,000 of their $500,000 goal. Something tells us they might just reach it in the end...
Also it turns out that there is a limit to how many people he can kill, who knew?
Via Mashable and Prizeo
