Orson Scott Card, the prolific American sci-fi writer who is mainly known for the Ender's Game series, will be offering a two-day writing seminar in Wellington at the end of March.

Ender's Game is about an unusual child who is fated to rid the earth of Buggers, an evil alien species that is trying to wipe out mankind. Yes. And it’s rumoured to be hitting the big screen through Warner Brothers via the X-Men 2 writing team sometime soonish, with the kid who played Anakin Skywalker possibly in the lead role …

Card is appearing (I will refrain from silly sci-fi beam-me-down stylee jokes – no, really) at the 26th Annual National Science Fiction Convention, ICON, which is to be held this Easter, 25th to 28th March at the West Plaza Hotel in Wellington.

A prominent Mormon and keen supporter of George W Bush, OSC, as he’s fondly known out there in sci-fi land, is also an 'outspoken essayist and social commentator'. And he’s got five kids, and once was an unpaid missionary for the Mormon Church in Brazil for two years. Jeez, he’s busy ay! Anyway, it’s all there, along with several different angles of The Disarming Grin, on his website. I think the photo I found is much nicer however.

You know, I just might have to pop along to ICON to see how all these diverse talents and beliefs manage to work together. And may I say the banquet menu looks quoite noice too. Wonder if OSC will be there … perhaps I could take a couple of my gay friends; they’d probably love to help Orson with his roasted tomato and sweet basil soup, and my guess is they’d definitely find somewhere to put his homebaked dinner roll.