Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America

According to Lin Carter, the guiding force behind the group, SAGA was founded in the mid-1960s by the trio of himself, L. Sprague de Camp, and John Jakes out of a shared interest in the then-neglected subgenre of heroic fantasy.

"[1] Membership was soon extended to other authors sharing their taste for fantasy, such as Michael Moorcock, who was styled "Veiled Thaumaturge of the Mauve Barbarians of Ningg".

"[2] Several sword and sorcery anthologies edited by L. Sprague de Camp for Pyramid Books and Putnam from 1963 to 1970 featured stories by SAGA members along with other, usually earlier fantasists.

Another early anthology including works by members of the group was Swords Against Tomorrow (Signet Books, 1970), a paperback original edited by Robert Hoskins.

[6] From 1974 to 1981 the Gandalf Grand Master Award was annually presented to one person for life achievement in high fantasy writing.