Authors Quill toast guest Orson Scott Card is an American writer known best for his science fiction

Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. As of 2024, he is the only person to have won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for his novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986). A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card coproduced, was released in 2013. Card also wrote the Locus Fantasy Award-winning series The Tales of Alvin Maker (1987–2003). Card's fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing; his opposition to homosexuality has provoked public criticism.

Card, who is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Utah and California. While he was a student at Brigham Young University (BYU), his plays were performed on stage. He served in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and headed a community theater for two summers. Card had 27 short stories published between 1978 and 1979, and he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978. He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1981 and wrote novels in science fiction, fantasy, nonfiction, and historical fiction genres starting in 1979. Card continued to write prolifically, and he has published over 50 novels and 45 short stories.[1]

Card teaches English at Southern Virginia University; he has written two books on creative writing and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. He has taught many successful writers at his "literary boot camps". He remains a practicing member of the LDS Church.

Life
Childhood and education

Card (right) signing autographs at New York Comic Con in 2008
Orson Scott Card was born on August 24, 1951, in Richland, Washington.[2] He is the son of Peggy Jane (née Park) and Willard Richards Card, and is the third of six children and the older brother of composer and arranger Arlen Card.[3] Card's family has Mormon pioneer heritage. His ancestors include Brigham Young, Charles Ora Card, Zina P. Young Card, Zina Young Card Brown, and Hugh B. Brown.[4]

When Card was one month old, his family moved to San Mateo, California, so Willard Card could begin a sign-painting business. When he was three years old, the family moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, so his father could finish his bachelor's degree. The family moved to Santa Clara, California, when Card was six; they stayed there for seven years while his father completed his master's degree and worked as a professor at San Jose State College. In school, Card took classes for gifted students, but he was more interested in studying music—he played clarinet and French horn. He read widely, including historical fiction, nonfiction, and literary classics.[5] At age ten, he wrote his first story, which was about an intelligent child who is assaulted by bullies and sustains brain damage. Ender's confrontation with Stilson in Ender's Game is based on this story.[6]

In 1964, Card and his family moved to Mesa, Arizona, where he participated in mock debates in junior high school. In 1967, the family moved to Orem, Utah, where his father worked at Brigham Young University (BYU). Card attended BYU's laboratory school, where he took both high school and early college-level classes before graduating in one year. When beginning his college studies he intended to major in archeology, but after becoming increasingly more interested in theater, he began script-writing, writing ten original plays and rewriting other students' plays. Most of his plays were based on Mormon history and scriptures; one was science fiction. By watching the body language of an audience, he could tell when an audience was interested in his scripts.[6][7] During his studies as a theater major, he began doctoring scripts, adapting fiction for reader's theater production, and writing one-act and full-length plays, several of which were produced by faculty directors at BYU.[8] Charles W. Whitman, Card's play-writing professor, encouraged his students to write plays with LDS themes.[9] Card studied poetry with Clinton F. Larson at BYU.[10] He also wrote short stories, which were later published together in The Worthing Saga.[11]

Before graduating, Card served as a missionary for the LDS Church in Brazil starting in 1971. During his mission, he wrote a play called Stone Tables.[12][13] He returned from his mission in 1973 and graduated from BYU in 1975, receiving a bachelor's degree with distinction in theater.[14][12] After graduation, he started the Utah Valley Repertory Theatre Company, which for two summers produced plays at "the Castle", a Depression-era outdoor amphitheater.[15] After going into debt with the community theatre's expenses,[16]