Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card was born in Washington, and grew up in various states, including California, Arizona, and Utah. His family was devoutly Mormon, and he studied the Book of Mormon from an early age. As a young man, he worked as a Mormon missionary in Brazil. Afterwards, he studied at Brigham Young University and the University of Utah, where he majored in English. He also spent a year as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Notre Dame, but dropped out to found a theater company, the Utah Valley Repertory Theater Company. For most of the late 70s and early 80s, Card presided over his theater company while also working at the BYU press. It was during this time that Card published the short story “Ender’s Game,” which he would turn into a novel in 1985. Ender’s Game was a great commercial and critical success, and won Card the coveted Nebula Award, the highest honor for American science fiction writers. The following year, Card published a sequel to Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, which also won the Nebula, making Card one of the few writers to win this award twice. During the 80s and 90s, Card wrote several other successful novels, and in recent years he’s continued to write prolifically. Card has also founded several successful outlets for aspiring writers, including Strong Verse, a website that specializes in submissions from unpublished authors.