Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American novelist, critic, public speaker, essayist, and columnist. He writes in several genres but is known best for science fiction. His novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986) both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win both science fiction's top U.S. prizes in consecutive years. A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in 2013.
Card is a professor of English at Southern Virginia University, has written two books on creative writing, hosts writing bootcamps and workshops, and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. A great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, Card is a practicing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). In addition to producing a large body of fiction works, he has also offered political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing.
He has written under a number of pseudonyms, including Frederick Bliss, Brian Green, P.Q. Gump, Dinah Kirkham, Scott Richards, and Byron Walley.
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Early life
Card is the son of Willard Richards Card and Peggy Jane (née Park), the third of six children and the older brother of composer and arranger Arlen Card. Card was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Santa Clara, California as well as Mesa, Arizona and Orem, Utah. He served as a missionary for the LDS Church in Brazil and graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) and the University of Utah; he also spent a year in a Ph.D. program at the University of Notre Dame.
For part of the 1970s Card worked as an associate editor of the Ensign, an official magazine of the LDS Church. Influences on his fiction include Heinlein, Austen, Mitchell, Asimov, Richter, and Bradbury.
Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, a place that has played a significant role in Ender's Game and many of his other works.
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Fiction
Card began his writing career primarily as a poet, studying with Clinton F. Larson at BYU. During his studies as a theater major, he began "doctoring" scripts, adapting fiction for readers theater production, and finally writing his own one-act and full-length plays, several of which were produced by faculty directors at BYU. He also explored fiction writing, beginning with stories that eventually evolved into The Worthing Saga.
After returning to Provo, Utah from his LDS mission in Brazil, Card started the Utah Valley Repertory Theatre Company, which for two summers produced plays at "the Castle", a Depression-era outdoor amphitheater behind the state psychiatric hospital in Provo; his company's were the first plays ever produced at the Castle. Meanwhile, he took part-time employment as a proofreader at BYU Press, then made the jump to full-time employment as a copy editor. In 1976, in the midst of a paid role performing in the church's musical celebrating America's Bicentennial, he secured employment as an assistant editor at the Ensign, and moved to Salt Lake City. It was while working at Ensign that Card published his first piece of fiction. His short story "Gert Fram" appeared in the July 1977 fine arts issue of that magazine under the pseudonym Byron Walley.
Science fiction
He wrote the short story "Ender's Game" while working at the BYU press, and submitted it to several publications. The idea for the later novel of the same title came from the short story about a school where boys can fight in space. It was eventually purchased by Ben Bova at Analog Science Fiction and Fact and published in the August 1977 issue. Meanwhile, he started writing half-hour audioplays on LDS Church history, the New Testament, and other subjects for Living Scriptures in Ogden, Utah; on the basis of that continuing contract, some freelance editing work, and a novel contract for Hot Sleep and A Planet Called Treason, he left Ensign and began supporting his family as a freelancer.
He completed his master's degree in English at the University of Utah in 1981 and began a doctoral program at the University of Notre Dame, but the recession of the early 1980s caused the flow of new book contracts to temporarily dry up. He returned to full-time employment as the book editor for Compute! magazine in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1983. In October of that year, a new contract for the Alvin Maker "trilogy" (now up to six books) allowed him to return to freelancing.
Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead were both awarded the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, making Card the only author (as of 2015) to win both of science fiction's top prizes in consecutive years. Card continued the series with Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, "First Meetings in the Enderverse", Shadow of the Giant, Shadows in Flight, the 2007 release of A War of Gifts, and the 2008 release of Ender in Exile, a book that takes place after Ender's Game and before Speaker for the Dead. Card has also announced his plan to write Shadows Alive, a book that connects the "Shadow" series and "Speaker" series together. He later also wrote the first formic war saga: Earth Unaware, Earth Afire, and Earth Awakens as a prequel to the Ender novels. This trilogy relays, among other things, the history of Mazer Rackham. In 2008 Card announced that Ender's Game would be made into a movie, but that he did not have a director lined up (Wolfgang Petersen had previously been scheduled to direct the movie but subsequently moved on to other projects.) It was to be produced by Chartoff Productions, and Card was writing the screenplay himself. The film was made several years later, and released in 2013, with Asa Butterfield in the title role and Gavin Hood directing.
Other works include the alternative histories The Tales of Alvin Maker, Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, The Homecoming Saga, and Hidden Empire, a story about a near-future civil war in the United States, based on the Xbox Live Arcade video game Shadow Complex. He collaborated with Star Wars artist Doug Chiang on Robota and with Kathryn H. Kidd on Lovelock.
Other genres
He has since branched out into other areas of fiction with novels such as Lost Boys, Treasure Box and Enchantment. Other works include the novelization of the James Cameron film The Abyss, and the comic book Ultimate Iron Man for Marvel Comics' Ultimate Marvel Universe series. Outside the world of published fiction, Card contributed dialog to at least three video games: Loom, The Secret of Monkey Island and The Dig in the early 1990s.
In 1983 Card published the novel Saints, a historical fiction based loosely on one of his ancestors and her experiences coming into the LDS Church during the early portion of its movement. It continues through her eyes into subsequent events up until the granting of Statehood to Utah.
In 2000, Card published the first novel in The Women of Genesis series. This series explores the lives of the principal women mentioned in the first book of the Bible and includes Sarah (2000), Rebekah (2002), and Rachel and Leah (2004).
In the fall of 2005, Card launched Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show. He edited the first two issues, but found that the demands of teaching, writing, and directing plays for his local church theater group made it impossible to respond to writers' submissions in a timely manner; former Card student and experienced freelance writer and editor Edmund R. Schubert took over as editor on June 1, 2006.
The dialog and screenplay (but not the story) for the Xbox video game Advent Rising was written by Card and Cameron Dayton.
In 2008, Card's novella Hamlet's Father, a retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet, was published in the anthology The Ghost Quartet (Tor Books). The work re-interpreted all of the characters' personalities and motivations.
Pseudonyms
Over the years Orson Scott Card has used at least seven pseudonyms.
He used the names Frederick Bliss and P.Q. Gump when he was asked to write an overview of Mormon playwrights "Mormon Shakespeares: A Study of Contemporary Mormon Theatre" for Spring 1976 issue of Sunstone magazine. According to Card he used these pseudonyms because the article included a brief reference to himself and his play "Stone Tables".
The name Byron Walley was used by Card on his first published piece of fiction "Gert Fram" which appeared in the July 1977 fine arts issue of Ensign magazine. According to Card he used this name because he had a non-fiction article, "Family Art", a poem, "Looking West", and a short play, "The Rag Mission", appearing in the same issue. Card also used the name Byron Walley in stories he published in Friend magazine, New Era magazine and in the anthology Dragons of Darkness. Stories by Byron Walley include: "Gert Fram", Ensign magazine, July 1977; "Bicicleta", Friend magazine, October 1977; "The Best Family Home Evening Ever", Friend magazine, January 1978; "Billy's Box", Friend magazine, February 1978; "I Think Mom and Dad Are Going Crazy, Jerry", New Era magazine, May 1979; and "Middle Woman", Dragons of Darkness, Ace Books, 1982.
He used the name Brian Green in the July 1977 fine arts issue of Ensign magazine. He used this name for his short play "The Rag Mission" because he had three other pieces appearing in the same issue. The name Dinah Kirkham was used to write the short story "The Best Day", in 1983. The name Noam D. Pellume was used by Card for his short story "Damn Fine Novel" which appeared in the October 1989 issue of The Green Pages.
Card wrote the novel Zanna's Gift (2004) under the pen name Scott Richards, saying, "I was trying to establish a separate identity in the marketplace, but for various reasons the marketing strategy didn't work as we'd hoped."
On writing
Teaching
In 2005, Card accepted a permanent appointment as "distinguished professor" at Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista, Virginia, a small liberal arts college run according to the principles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Card has cited his frustration with the dismal teaching methodology for creative writing in most universities as a reason for accepting this position, along with his desire to teach the techniques of effective fiction writing to writers whose values are more congruent with his own. Card has worked closely with colleagues to develop ways to educate aspiring writers and has published two books on the subject. He was eager for the opportunity to apply these techniques in a university environment--his assorted workshops did not allow the follow-through he desired. After being deeply moved by stories of his students' parents in some of their essays, he decided to stop teaching regularly at the university to spend time with his youngest child who still lives at home. Card returned to teaching for the spring semester of 2009.
Books on writing
Card has written two books on the subject of creative writing - Characters and Viewpoint, published in 1988, and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, published in 1990. He was also a co-writer for How to Write a Million (though his contribution is actually a reprint of an earlier work).
Card also offered advice about writing in an interview in Leading Edge #23 in 1991.
Writers of the Future
Card serves as a judge in Writers of the Future, a science fiction and fantasy story contest for amateur writers. It originated in the early 1980s by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer and the founder of the Church of Scientology, and continues to be funded and organized by Author Services Inc., an entity that manages Hubbard's literary work.
Children's books
Card won the ALA Margaret Edwards Award in 2008 for his contribution in writing for teens, selected by a panel of YA librarians. "What have I done that made some wonderfully deluded people think that I should get the [award] for lifetime achievement in writing young adult fiction?" he asked in his address, and asserted that "There is no such thing as children's literature." Furthermore:
I have not worked with YA editors; my work has never been marketed that way until Tor put a YA cover and a new ISBN on Ender's Game--fifteen years after the book first came out, and long after it had become popular with young readers. Ender's Game was written with no concessions to young readers. My protagonists were children, but the book was definitely not aimed at kids. I was perfectly aware that the rule of thumb for children's literature is that the protagonist must be a couple of years older than the target audience. You want ten-year-old readers, you have a twelve-year-old hero.
At the beginning of the book, Ender is six. Who, exactly, is the target audience?
Poetry
Card created a website, Strong Verse that publishes poetry from authors living and dead with the aim of showcasing works that present a clear message in clear language. The following motto appears on the website's header: "Good poetry is meant to be understood, not decoded."
Opinion
Since 2001, Card's commentary includes the political columns "War Watch", "World Watch", or "Civilization Watch" (depending on Card's topic) and the column "Uncle Orson Reviews Everything", all published at the Greensboro Rhinoceros Times. The last-named column features personal reviews of movies, books, and restaurants in the greater Greensboro area, in addition to a variety of other topics. The column also later appears on his website, Hatrack River. Since 2008 Card has written a column for the Mormon Times.
Politics
Card's vocal opposition to same-sex marriage and other views on homosexuality led to a boycott of the film version of Ender's Game - a development which itself received criticism. Owing to political developments, by the early 2010s Card believed the question of U.S. legalization of same-sex marriage moot.
Describing himself as a political liberal and moral conservative, Card's ideals concerning society--as well as foundational themes within his fiction--are described as communitarian. In 2000, Card said, "Most of the program of both the left and the right is so unbelievably stupid it's hard to wish to identify myself with either. But on economic matters, I'm a committed communitarian. I regard the Soviet Union as simply state monopoly capitalism. It was run the way the United States would be if Microsoft owned everything. Real communism has never been tried! I would like to see government controls expanded, laws that allow capitalism to not reward the most rapacious, exploitative behavior. I believe government has a strong role to protect us from capitalism."
A vocal supporter of the U.S.'s War on Terror, according to Salon, Card is close to neoconservative concerning foreign policy issues.
Views on U.S. presidential politics
A member of the U.S. Democratic Party since 1976, Card supported Republican presidential candidates John McCain in 2008 and Newt Gingrich.
In an August 2013 essay, he presented as an experiment in fictional writing of "The game of Unlikely Events", Card described an alternative future in which President Barack Obama ruled as a "Hitler- or Stalin-style dictator" with his own national police force of young unemployed men; Obama and his wife Michelle would have amended the U.S. Constitution to allow presidents to remain in power for life, as in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Hitler's Germany. Card's essay drew criticism, especially for alleged insensitivity in its reference to urban gangs.
Views about homosexuality
Card has publicly declared his opposition to homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
In a 1990 essay he wrote that "laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced", but to "send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society". In the same essay, Card clarified his position, writing:
The goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal is to discourage people from engaging in homosexual practices in the first place, and, when they nevertheless proceed in their homosexual behavior, to encourage them to do so discreetly, so as not shake the confidence of the community in polity's ability to provide rules for safe, dependable marriage and family relationships.
In May 2013 Card further wrote that since the US Supreme Court had ruled those laws unconstitutional in 2003, he has "no interest in criminalizing homosexual acts". Responding to public criticism of the 1990 essay, Card noted:
Oddly enough, even as I am attacked by some as a homophobe, I am attacked by others as being too supportive of homosexuality, simply because I cannot see individual homosexuals, in or out of my books, as anything other than human beings with as complex a combination of good and evil in them as I find within myself. In my own view, I am walking a middle way, which condemns the sin but loves the sinner.
In a 2008 opinion piece in the Deseret News he wrote that "no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman." In 2009 he joined the board of directors of the National Organization for Marriage, a group that campaigns against same-sex marriage, but later resigned from the board in mid-2013. Card has stated that there is no need to legalize gay marriage.
Card has also expressed his opinion that paraphilia and homosexuality are linked. In 2004, he claimed that it is a "myth that homosexuals are 'born that way'", noting that "if there is a genetic component to homosexuality, an entire range of environmental influences are also involved." He continued, saying that "the dark secret of homosexual society" was how often people "entered into that world through disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse".
In Card's 2008 novella Hamlet's Father, which re-imagines the backstory of Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Card was accused of directly trying to link the king's pedophilia with homosexuality. The novella prompted public outcry and its publishers were inundated with complaints. Trade journal Publishers Weekly criticized Card's work, stating that the main purpose of it was to attempt to link homosexuality to pedophilia. Card responded to the claim: "...[T]here is no link whatsoever between homosexuality and pedophilia in this book. Hamlet's father, in the book, is a pedophile, period. I don't show him being even slightly attracted to adults of either sex. It is the reviewer, not me, who has asserted this link, which I would not and did not make."
In 2013, Card was selected as a guest author for DC Comics's new Adventures of Superman comic book series, but controversy over Card's views on homosexuality led illustrator Chris Sprouse to leave the project and DC Comics to put Card's story on hold indefinitely. A few months later an LGBT group, Geeks OUT!, proposed a boycott of the movie adaptation of Ender's Game calling Card's view anti-gay, causing the movie studio Lionsgate to publicly distance itself from Card's opinions.
In July 2013, one week after the U.S. Supreme Court issued rulings in two cases that were widely interpreted as favoring recognition of same-sex marriages, Card wrote in Entertainment Weekly that the gay marriage issue is moot due to the Supreme Court's decision on DOMA. He further stated, "now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute".
Religion
Card's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been an important facet of his life from early on. He is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, the second Latter-day Saint prophet, and all of Card's ancestors for at least three generations have been members of the LDS Church. His ancestors include several other figures notable in the LDS Church, including the Cardston colony founder Charles Ora Card. As such, his faith has been a source of inspiration and influence for both his writing and his personal views. Since 2008 Card has written a column of Latter-day Saint devotional and cultural commentary for the Sunday national edition of the Deseret News (formerly "the Mormon Times").
Personal life
Card and his wife, Kristine, have had five children, each named after one or more authors he and his wife admire. Their children's names are Michael Geoffrey (Geoffrey Chaucer), Emily Janice (Emily Brontë and Emily Dickinson), Charles Benjamin (Charles Dickens), Zina Margaret (Margaret Mitchell) and Erin Louisa (Louisa May Alcott). Charles, who had cerebral palsy, died shortly after his 17th birthday and their daughter Erin died the day she was born. Card and his wife live with their youngest child, Zina, in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The life of their son, Charles, influenced some of Card's fiction, most notably the Homecoming series, Lost Boys and Folk of the Fringe. Their daughter, Emily, along with two other writers, adapted Card's short stories "Clap Hands and Sing", "Lifeloop" and "A Sepulchre of Songs" for the stage in Posing as People.
In 2008, he appeared in the short film The Delivery, which starred his daughter, Emily. He plays an author reading an audiobook in this film, which won First Place in Fantasy at Dragon*Con Film Festival. He wrote an original story, "The Emperor of the Air", specifically for the short film by Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki.
Card is an avid fan of the science fiction television series Firefly and makes an appearance in the documentary Done the Impossible about Firefly fandom. He has also served on the boards of a number of organizations, including public television station UNC-TV (2013-present) and the National Organization for Marriage (2009-2013).
Card suffered a mild stroke on January 1, 2011, and was briefly hospitalized. He reported expecting to make a full recovery despite impairment of his left hand.
Awards
The ALA Margaret A. Edwards Award recognizes one writer and a particular body of work for "significant and lasting contributions to young adult literature". Card won the annual award in 2008, citing Ender's Game (1985), which inaugurated the science fiction Ender Saga, and Ender's Shadow (1999), the so-called parallel novel featuring another boy in the Battle School. According to the citation, the two boys' "experiences echo those of teens, beginning as children navigating in an adult world and growing into a state of greater awareness of themselves, their communities and the larger universe." In the same year, Card won the Lifetime Achievement Award for Mormon writers (Whitney Awards).
He has also won numerous awards for single works.
- 1978 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer from the World Science Fiction Convention, citing the "Ender's Game" novelette
- 1981 Songmaster: Hamilton-Brackett Memorial Award, 1981
- 1984 Saints: Book of the Year by the Association for Mormon Letters
- 1985 Ender's Game: Nebula Award, 1985; Hugo Award, 1986; Hamilton-Brackett Award, 1986; SF Chronicle Readers Poll, 1986
- 1986 Speaker for the Dead; Nebula Award, 1986, Hugo Award, 1987; Locus Award, 1987; SF Chronicle Readers Poll Award 87
- 1987 "Eye for Eye": Hugo Award, 1988; "Japanese Hugo". 1989
- 1987 "Hatrack River": Nebula nominee, 1986, Hugo nominee, 1987, World Fantasy Award winner, 1987
- 1988 Seventh Son: Hugo and WFA nominee, 1988; Mythopoeic Society Award 1988; Locus Award winner, 1988
- 1989 Red Prophet: Hugo nominee, 1988; Nebula Nominee, 1989; Locus winner, 1989
- 1991 How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy (Writer's Digest Books, 90): Hugo Award
- 1995 Alvin Journeyman: Locus Award winner, 1996
Works
In 1978, the Harold B. Lee Library acquired the Orson Scott Card papers, which included Card's works, writing notes and letters, and in 2007 the collection was formally opened.
See also
- LDS fiction
- Descendants of Brigham Young
References
Further reading
- Critics, community and 'Ender's Game': An interview with Orson Scott Card, Deseret News, October 31, 2013.
- Card Catalogue: The Science Fiction and Fantasy of Orson Scott Card, Michael R. Collings, Hypatia Press, 1987, ISBN 0-940841-01-0
- In the Image of God: Theme, Characterization and Landscape in the Fiction of Orson Scott Card, Michael R. Collings, Greenwood Press, 1990, ISBN 0-313-26404-X
- The Work of Orson Scott Card: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide, Michael R. Collings and Boden Clarke, 1997
- Storyteller: The Official Guide to the Works of Orson Scott Card, Michael R. Collings, Overlook Connection Press, 2001, ISBN 1-892950-26-X
External links
- Official website
- Strong Verse, Online poetry magazine published by Card
- Orson Scott Card at the Internet Book List
- Orson Scott Card at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Orson Scott Card at Goodreads
- Orson Scott Card on IMDb
- Orson Scott Card papers, MSS 1756 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
- Orson Scott Card exhibit, includes several scans of manuscript items from the Orson Scott Card papers at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
Interviews and videos
- An audio interview with Orson Scott Card (MP3 format) from Hour 25
- Audio interview with Orson Scott Card at National Review Online
- Interview at SFFWorld.com
- "Behind the Scenes": Orson Scott Card on Ender's Game
- "Creative education - how to keep the spark alive in children and adults". TEDx Utah State University YouTube channel. December 6, 2014.
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