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The 21st-Annual USC Libraries Scripter Award Selection Rules
The annual USC Libraries Scripter Award honors the best adaptation of a book to film and recognizes both the author(s) and screenwriter(s). The award was founded by the Friends of the USC Libraries in 1988.
Only traditional or animated English-language feature films based on a single book or book series, novella, short story, or graphic novel are eligible. Plays and foreign-language works are not eligible. To be eligible, films must have been released domestically during the prior calendar year, January 1 – December 31.
The Scripter Award selection committee is comprised of Writers Guild of America members, Academy Award-winning and -nominated screenwriters, authors, film industry executives, faculty, and selected members of the board of the Friends of the USC Libraries. The selection committee chair is ineligible to win the Scripter Award while serving in that capacity. Selection committee members may be eligible to win while serving on the committee. The committee considers an average of 40 books and films per calendar year.
The Scripter Award selection committee has the sole discretion to determine the eligibility of its nominees.
The selection committee must consider all the eligible books and films before casting its first ballot to select the five finalists. No finalists or winners will be announced until all of the votes have been tallied. The winners of the Scripter Award—the author(s) and screenwriter(s)—are selected by a final, second ballot. The finalists will be invited to attend the gala ceremony, where the winners will be announced, and they will receive their Scripter Award before an audience of distinguished guests, selection committee members, the dean of the USC Libraries, and media.
The 21st USC Libraries Scripter Award ceremony is scheduled for Friday, January 30, 2009, in the Los Angeles Times Reference Room of the Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library at the University of Southern California.