How would you do that if you were going to be fighting in a three-dimensional space, piloting ships and so forth when there is no up and down?”Ĭlearly that would have to be done in free-fall, in outer space, but it would have to be done inside something with walls, so combatants wouldn’t drift away if they made a mistake. “The idea of training people to command came to mind. His older brother was in the Army and had told stories of boot camp and Officer Candidate School. The initial idea that became “Ender’s Game” dates to that time: as his father was driving him to school, he was trying to think of a science-fiction story premise. “I was so blown away by Asimov’s clarity, and the sweep, the sage, the vision, I thought that I want to write a science fiction story.” He notes that on his 16th birthday, his older brother and his brother’s future wife gave him two of the Foundation books by Isaac Asimov. He ended up deeply in debt and was desperate to earn “real money.” That was when he decided it was time for him to try writing. When he came home from his church mission in Brazil, he needed a job, and got one with Brigham Young University press as a proofreader.Īt the same time, he started a theatre company, which did well in terms of getting an audience, but not in terms of making money. He was a good speller from an early age and also understood grammar. He wuld spend hours helping her after work when she was struggling to get something done, collating and stapling while she typed (at 100 words per minute, “like a dream.” He thinks the real foundation of his writing was helping his Mom, a secretary, as a clerical helper. (Majoring in theatre, he says, is “what you do instead of getting a practical education.”) He’s used that theatrical training constantly since, “always to put on plays that cost me money and never earned me any.” He switched to theatre, where he was spending all his time anyway. It wasn’t until he was in college he realized that while the past fascinated him, he didn’t want to do the kind of dirty, laborious work archaelogists had to do in the kinds of places they had to do them, i.e., far from flush toilets. But he didn’t think he would be a writer: he wanted to be an archeologist. Through junior high and high school he was known for writing satirical song parodies making fun of his friends. In school he mostly wrote poetry or theatrical pieces, not fiction. His first published work was what he calls “a stupid little poem about spring” published in the state-wide educational journal when he was in Grade 4. In school, Card found out he was good at writing. Card’s mother was particularly involved in writing those, but his father also thought of himself as a writer. They were usually based on some Broadway show, and required a writer to make a script that would be entertaining. Growing up Mormon, there was a practice of creating comedy sketches, called Road Shows, taken from one church meetinghouse to another and performed for others within the diocese. Website: Twitter: Scott Card’s Amazon pageĬard notes his family had a tradition of thinking of themselves as writers. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University.Ĭard currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, where his primary activities are writing a review column for the local Rhinoceros Times and feeding birds, squirrels, chipmunks, possums, and raccoons on the patio. Besides his writing, he teaches occasional classes and workshops and directs plays. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. His most recent series, the young adult Pathfinder series ( Pathfinder, Ruins, Visitors) and the fantasy Mithermages series ( Lost Gate, Gate Thief, Gatefather) are taking readers in new directions.īesides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy ( Magic Street, Enchantment, Lost Boys), biblical novels ( Stone Tables, Rachel and Leah), the American frontier fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker (beginning with Seventh Son), poetry ( An Open Book), and many plays and scripts, including his “freshened” Shakespeare scripts for Romeo & Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Merchant of Venice.Ĭard was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and younger readers, and are increasingly used in schools. Part 1 focuses on how he began writing, and the genesis of his famous story “Ender’s Game.” The first half of a two-hour conversation with Orson Scott Card about his creative process. Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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