It turns out that there are people who accidentally become writers. It would be hard to believe if it were not for the life story of the American science fiction writer Orson Scott Card. After all, he began to write fantastic stories to close financial problems.
When Card had accumulated a lot of debts, he decided to try writing - he wrote stories, and he was well paid for them. Gradually, this activity began to bring pleasure, and then it became a profession altogether. Now the writer has more than a dozen prestigious awards for his science fiction novels, including he was twice awarded the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, which is almost an exception in the world of literature.
Biography
Orson Card was born in Richland, Washington in 1951. Since childhood, he was fond of literature and everything related to theater, so after school he entered Birgem Young University, where he studied English philology and theater studies.
Card is also a very religious person - he identifies himself as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In addition, he is one of the descendants of a key figure in this church. After university, Orson went to Brazil on a Christian mission and devoted three years to this work, introducing people to his church.
After arriving from Brazil, he lived for some time in Salt Lake City, where he was engaged in professional activities: he wrote plays for the theater. He also often served as a production director. Unfortunately for Orson and fortunately for his future readers, his plays did not have much success with the public, the theater fell into decay, and he had to take up writing.
Literary career
This was just the case when he wanted to pay off debts with the help of royalties. The first experience immediately turned out to be successful - it was the story "Ender's Game" (1977), in Russian translation it sounds like "Ender's Game".
There are many oddities in the life of a writer. One of them is that a whole novel under the same name grew out of the first story ten years later, and then Card wrote a sequel - "The Voice of Those Who Are Not." With the sequel, it turned out even stranger - it was better than the first book. As a rule, this does not happen, because often the writer has to “grind out” the plot of another novel. Orson did the opposite, and both critics and readers were unanimous in this.
Card had some bad experiences - for example, the novels "Xenocide" and "Children of the Mind" were not so enthusiastically received by the public, so he again returned to the "Ender theme" and wrote the teenage novel "The Shadow of Ender". It was the adventure story of the protagonist's classmate.
In addition to this storyline, Orson also has a sci-fi cycle, The Worthing Saga, as well as numerous books co-written with other writers.
In addition, Card writes historical novels. For example, "The Tale of Master Alvin" is very popular with readers. He also has a story about Christopher Columbus and other stories written in the genre of alternative history. He also paid attention to modernity - he wrote stories about Barack Obama, about the events in Ukraine. As you can see, the science fiction writer is not busy with imagination.
Personal life
Orson Card is married and has five children. Together with his wife Christine and children, they live in Ginsborough. And his whole family goes to performances based on his novels, which are staged at the local theater.
Orson named all the children after famous writers - another feature in his perception of the world.
