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Orson Scott Card (born August 24 1951) is a prolific and best-selling author of numerous genres.
Orson Scott Card often gives lectures to aspiring writers.
Overview
Card's launch in the publishing industry was with science fiction (Hot Sleep and Capitol) and later fantasy (Songmaster). He remains best known for the seminal Ender's Game, which has been among the most popular sci-fi novels ever since its publication in 1985. Both Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead were awarded both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, making Card the first author to win both of sci-fi's top prizes in consecutive years.
He has since branched out into contemporary fiction, such as Lost Boys, Treasure Box and Enchantment. Other works demonstrating his versatility include the novelization of the James Cameron film The Abyss, the alternate histories The Tales of Alvin Maker and Pastwatch, and Robota, a collaboration with Star Wars artist Doug Chiang.
His writing is dominated by detailed characterization and moral issues. As Card says, "We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction."
Some of his novels, for example Stone Tables, about the life of the Biblical prophet Moses; his Women of Genesis trilogy; The Folk Of The Fringe stories; and Saints, about Latter-day Saint pioneers, have explicit religious themes. In his other writings, the influence of his Mormon beliefs is less obvious; Card's Homecoming and Alvin Maker sagas are partly retellings of the Book of Mormon and the life of LDS founder Joseph Smith, Jr.
Card was born in Richland, Washington; raised in California, Arizona, and Utah; served an LDS mission in Brazil; graduated from Brigham Young University and the University of Utah; and now lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. He and his wife Kristine are the parents of five children: Geoffrey (a published author in his own right), Emily (who adapted his short story "A Sepulchre of Songs" to the stage in Posing as People), Charlie Ben, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa. The children are named for the authors Chaucer, Brontë and Dickinson, Dickens, Mitchell, and Alcott.
In addition to his novels and short stories, Card has had an active career as a nonfiction writer. During the 1980s he wrote many technical articles and columns, primarily for Compute!'s Gazette and Ahoy!, two magazines covering Commodore microcomputers. Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks Card began to write a weekly "War Watch" (later renamed "World Watch") column for the Greensboro Rhino Times which is archived on Card's website.
Quotes
- "I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration." (from the introduction to the story collection Future on Fire, where he discusses writers he considers to be hacks.)
- "If it isn't a wonderful story first, who cares how "important" it is?" (Ibid.)
Selected bibliography
Pre-Ender's Game works
The Ender saga
The Shadow series
The Tales of Alvin Maker
The Homecoming saga
The "Women of Genesis" series
Other post-Ender's Game works
Plays
- Posing as People, a collection of three short stories by Card, adapted to the stage, first production directed by Card.
Books on writing
- Character and Viewpoint (1988)
- How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy (1990)
See also
External links
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