MASTER OF CEREMONIES DEAN CATHERINE QUINLAN Photo credit: John Livzey Photo credit: CATHERINE QUINLAN is the inaugural holder of the Valerie and Ronald Sugar Dean’s Chair of the USC Libraries. She is responsible for guiding the university’s efforts to establish the model for the 21st-century library by providing leadership for USC’s library faculty and staff; collaborating with other university deans, faculty, and friends to optimize and develop resources for scholars; and building partnerships with a variety of cultural institutions throughout Southern California and beyond. Quinlan came to USC after a decade at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she headed a library system encompassing 300 full-time staff members and more than 21 sites. Beginning in 2004, she also served as managing director of UBC’s Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Before joining UBC, she spent seven years as director of libraries and chief librarian at the University of Western Ontario, and as an adjunct professor in the university’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Previously, Quinlan oversaw the health sciences library at Memorial University of Newfoundland and was a member of the adjunct business administration faculty. She holds an MBA from Memorial University of Newfoundland, a master of library studies degree from Dalhousie University, and a bachelor of music degree from Queen’s University. 9 SCRIPTER AWARD SELECTION COMMITTEE SCRIPTER AWARD SELECTION COMMITTEE NAOMI FONER and HOWARD A. RODMAN CO-CHAIRS NAOMI FONER and HOWARD A. RODMAN, Co-chairs NAOMI FONER has spent her career as a screenwriter exploring the exquisite complications of family. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and received the PEN West and Golden Globe Awards for Running on Empty, starring River Phoenix and directed by Sidney Lumet. She wrote and produced A Dangerous Woman, starring Debra Winger, Barbara Hershey, and Gabriel Byrne; Losing Isaiah with Jessica Lange and Halle Berry; and Violets are Blue, starring Sissy Spacek and Kevin Kline. Her adaptation of Myla Goldberg’s novel Bee Season, starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche, was released by Fox Searchlight in 2005. Very Good Girls, for which she wrote the original screenplay, is the first time she has directed her own work. The film, which features Dakota Fanning, Elizabeth Olsen, and Boyd Holbrook, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. HOWARD A. RODMAN is vice president of the Writers Guild of America, West; professor and former chair of the writing division at the USC School of Cinematic Arts; and an artistic director of the Sundance Institute Screenwriting Labs. His films Savage Grace and August had their US premieres at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Savage Grace was nominated for a Spirit Award in the Best Screenplay category. Rodman also wrote Joe Gould’s Secret, which opened the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. 10 SCRIPTER AWARD SELECTION COMMITTEE SCRIPTER AWARD SELECTION COMMITTEE NAOMI FONER and HOWARD A. RODMAN, Co-chairs Albert Berger Gail Mutrux Robert Bloomingdale Michael Ondaatje* Leo Braudy Hawk Ostby* Ted Braun Dean Madeline Puzo Michael Chabon* Dean Catherine Quinlan Dean Elizabeth Daley Howard Rodman Jack Epps, Jr. Eric Roth* Mark Fergus* Michelle Satter Geoffrey Fletcher Tom Schulman Naomi Foner Brad Simpson Daryle Ann Giardino Mona Simpson Kaui Hart Hemmings* Glenn A. Sonnenberg Nick Hornby Wesley Strick Gale Anne Hurd Robin Swicord Lawrence Kasdan* Anne Thompson Nicholas Kazan Jennifer Todd Chris Keyser Suzanne Todd Jonathan Lethem Kenneth Turan Claudia Lewis Josh Welsh Leonard Maltin Erin Cressida Wilson Mike Medavoy *Previous Scripter winner 11 SCRIPTER AWARD FINALISTS 14 SCRIPTER AWARD FINALISTS ARGO ANTONIO J. MENDEZ and JOSHUAH BEARMAN, authors CHRIS TERRIO, screenwriter William Morrow and Wired, publishers; Warner Bros., studio BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD LUCY ALIBAR, author and screenwriter BENH ZEITLIN, screenwriter Diversion Books, publisher; Fox Searchlight, studio LIFE OF PI YANN MARTEL, author DAVID MAGEE, screenwriter Mariner Books, publisher; 20th Century Fox, studio LINCOLN DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, author TONY KUSHNER, screenwriter Mariner Books, publisher; DreamWorks, studio THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER STEPHEN CHBOSKY, author and screenwriter MTV Books, publisher; Summit Entertainment, studio SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK MATTHEW QUICK, author DAVID O. RUSSELL, screenwriter Sarah Crichton Books, publisher; The Weinstein Company, studio 15 SCRIPTER AWARD FINALISTS ARGO ANTONIO MENDEZ and JOSHUAH BEARMAN, authors ANTONIO (TONY) MENDEZ served in the CIA for twenty-five years, specializing in covert operations, specifically with forging documents, creating disguises, and other work related to the field of espionage. A highly decorated officer, he received the Intelligence Star for Valor for the “Canadian Caper,” also known as the Argo operation. The author of four nonfiction works about his time at the agency, including Master of Disguise and Spy Dust, Mendez lives with his family in rural Maryland outside of Washington, DC. JOSHUAH BEARMAN is a former staff writer and editor forLA Weekly. He currently writes for Rolling Stone, Harper’s, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, McSweeney’s, and The Huffington Post. Bearman was a contributing producer on the documentary, The King of Kong. Several of his articles have been optioned for film and television adaptation. His 2007 Wired article about the CIA’s Argo mission was, along with Mendez’s autobiography, the basis for the film’s screenplay. Bearman is a board member of 826LA, a nonprofit tutoring center in Los Angeles. He lives in Hollywood and is currently working on a book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 16 CHRIS TERRIO, screenwriter USC alumnus CHRIS TERRIO (’02, Cinema-Television) made his feature screenwriting debut with Argo, which has earned him Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and WGA Award nominations. His first feature-length film, Heights, starring Glenn Close, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released by Sony Pictures Classics in 2005. Terrio directed Close once again in 2010 on an episode of the Emmy Award-winning television series Damages. His upcoming projects include a film of his original screenplay The Ends of the Earth; Tell No One, an adaptation of Harlan Coben’s book of the same title; a screenplay based on David Grann’s New Yorker article “A Murder Foretold,” about a series of high-level murders in Guatemala; and an original screenplay for director Paul Greengrass. He lives in his hometown of New York City. 17 SCRIPTER AWARD FINALISTS BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD LUCY ALIBAR, author and screenwriter Photo credit: Nicholas Heavican Photo credit: LUCY ALIBAR is a screenwriter, playwright, and storyteller from the Florida panhandle. She co-wrote with director Behn Zeitlin, whom she met in summer camp as a teenager, Beasts of the Southern Wild, based on her original one-act play Juicy and Delicious. Alibar’s other plays include A Friend of Dorothy (a finalist for Best Play at the Montreal Fringe), Lightning/Picnic, and Mommy Says I’m Pretty on the Insides. She is a Sundance Screenwriting Fellow, two-time finalist for the Heideman Award at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, and winner of Young Playwrights, Inc. Alibar is currently writing a feature-length film based on her playChristmas and Jubilee Behold the Meteor Shower. 18 BENH ZEITLIN, screenwriter Born in New York, BENH ZEITLIN began his career as a filmmaker at the age of 6, making a Batman movie with a friend. Soon after graduating from Wesleyan University with a major in film, he helped start an independent filmmaking collective, Court 13. He moved to New Orleans in 2008 where he made the short film,Glory at Sea, set amidst the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. His feature film debutBeasts of the Southern Wild also touches upon humankind’s battle against the elements in the Louisiana bayou. The fantasy film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, multiple awards at the Cannes Film Festival, and is currently nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. 19 SCRIPTER AWARD FINALISTS LIFE OF PI YANN MARTEL, author YANN MARTEL is best known for the Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, first published in 2001. Born in Spain to a Canadian diplomat, Martel spent extended time in Costa Rica, France, Iran, Mexico, and Turkey—places that provided the kind of cultural tapestry he has woven throughout his writing. In preparation for writing Pi he spent six months in India visiting mosques, temples, churches and zoos, and then an entire year reading religious texts and castaway stories. Martel currently lives in Saskatoon, Canada. 20 DAVID MAGEE, screenwriter DAVID MAGEE was nominated in 2004 for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for the screenplay to Finding Neverland, based on a play about the life of Peter Pan author J. M. Barrie. On the set of the film he read—and was immediately entranced by—the book Life of Pi, but had doubts the intricate work could ever be filmed until director Ang Lee came on board. Another of Magee’s works to make it to screen is also an adaptation—along with Simon Beaufoy he wrote the screenplay for the 2008 filmMiss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Winifred Watson and starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. 21 SCRIPTER AWARD FINALISTS LINCOLN DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, author DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian known especially for her nonfiction work on the American presidents Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Her 2005 publication Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln became a New York Times bestseller and won both the prestigious Lincoln Prize and the inaugural Book Prize for American History. She appears frequently as a political news analyst on all of the major news networks and has made guest appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report.