On Saturday, March 13, the USC Libraries will honor the year’s most accomplished adaptations of the written word—and everyone can follow along at home. The 33rd-annual Scripter Award ceremony, held online this year, will stream live at scripter.usc.edu beginning at 7 p.m. PST.
The finalist writers for film adaptation are, in alphabetical order by film title:
- Mike Makowsky for HBO Films’ “Bad Education” based on the New York magazine article “The Bad Superintendent” by Robert Kolker
- Jon Raymond and Kelly Reichardt for A24’s “First Cow” based on the novel “The Half-Life” by Jon Raymond
- Screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson and playwright August Wilson for Netflix’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
- Chloé Zhao for Searchlight Pictures’ “Nomadland” based on the nonfiction book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” by Jessica Bruder
- Screenwriter and playwright Kemp Powers for Amazon’s “One Night in Miami”
The finalist writers for episodic series are, in alphabetical order by series title:
- Mark Richard and Ethan Hawke, for the episode “Meet the Lord,” from Showtime’s “The Good Lord Bird,” based on the novel by James McBride
- Sally Rooney and Alice Birch for the fifth episode of Hulu’s “Normal People,” based on the novel by Sally Rooney
- Ed Burns and David Simon for the sixth episode of HBO’s “The Plot Against America,” based on the novel by Philip Roth
- Scott Frank for the episode “Openings,” from Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit,” based on the novel by Walter Tevis
- Anna Winger for the first episode of Netflix’s “Unorthodox,” based on the autobiography “Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots” by Deborah Feldman
The winners will be announced at the ceremony, which will also honor California State Librarian Greg Lucas with the presentation of the Ex Libris Award. Lucas, a former journalist and capitol bureau chief for the San Francisco Chronicle, has been a powerful advocate for the state’s libraries and childhood reading skills since his appointment by Governor Jerry Brown in 2014.
For more information about the Scripter Awards, please email scripter@usc.edu or visit scripter.usc.edu.