Orson Scott Card (edit name/settings)

jennynoel edited the overview of Orson Scott Card Tuesday, June 5, 2012.

• Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is a prolific and best-selling author of numerous genres.

  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, 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 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, Charlie Ben, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa, named for the authors Chaucer, Brontë and Dickinson, Dickens, Mitchell and Alcott, respectively.

  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. He also writes a weekly review column for the same titled "Uncle Orson Reviews Everything" (also archived on his website).

  Since 2009, Card has served on the Board of Directors of National Organization for Marriage (NOM), an American non-profit political organization established in 2007 to work against legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States.

  Quotations
  "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.)

randomness edited the overview of Orson Scott Card Friday, June 17, 2011.

• Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is a prolific and best-selling author of numerous genres.

  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, 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 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, Charlie Ben, Zina Margaret, and Erin Louisa, named for the authors Chaucer, Brontë and Dickinson, Dickens, Mitchell and Alcott, respectively.

  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. He also writes a weekly review column for the same titled "Uncle Orson Reviews Everything" (also archived on his website).

  Quotations
  "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.)