The 37th annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards took place Saturday night, as writers of every kind came together to celebrate the art of adaptation. With a total of ten nominees split across the film and series categories, the evening was surely one for the books — and those books’ respective film adaptations. 

The event saw speeches from members of the USC Libraries Scripter Awards selection committee, as well as writers, actors and USC Libraries dean Melissa Just.

“We are in the middle of award season in Hollywood, but Scripter is unique because we’re the only award ceremony that focuses on the written word, which is so perfect for libraries,” Just told the Daily Trojan at the red carpet reception before the event.

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For many of Saturday evening’s nominees, this award — and awards season as a whole — means more than shiny statues or box office boosts. Many of this year’s adaptations had socially conscious stories to tell.

“We want to spread the word that remarkable human beings that have made a mistake are incarcerated but should be encouraged, not punished,” said Brent Buell, writer and producer of Scripter nominee “Sing Sing” (2023). 

The Scripters aren’t just unique in the fact that they take place at USC, but in what they represent. 

“[Scripter] not only rewards the script writers, but the underlying material … and I think that’s a beautiful thing,” Buell said.

After a welcome from Just, acclaimed novelist Walter Mosley took to the podium to introduce the recipient of the Ex Libris Award, Howard Rodman, for “exceptional commitment to the USC Libraries.” 

Rodman’s speech offered personal anecdotes before touching on and critiquing President Donald Trump’s executive order “Ending radical indoctrination in K-12 Schools,” as well as Idaho’s House Bill 710, “prohibit[ing] certain materials from being promoted, given, or made available to a minor.”

Rodman, who is also a professor of cinematic writing for screen and television, went on to share the impact books had on him, especially his copies of the encyclopedia “The Wonderland of Knowledge” he read as a child. 

“When my parents would fight, which was quite often, I’d hide under the piano, inhaling the far away, fragrant scent of the waxed, wood sounding board. The raised lid became a giant sail and I would stare at the [‘Wonderland of Knowledge’], a cyclopedia of places I would rather be,” Rodman said.

Rodman used the book to travel everywhere he could imagine — or that the books could imagine for him.

“A to BAL, BAL to BIZ — sailing to Byzantium. CAB to CLY, CLY to DEN — around the North Sea to Denmark. DEN to FIP, FIP to GRE — down the Aegean Sea to Greece,” Rodman said. “GRE to JES, JES to MIN — aboard the U.S. Minnesota. MIN to PEA, PEA to SAN — San Francisco, shortly from the North Beach. SAN to TID, TIE of ZWI — the Island Zwyzwyzwantia, where iridescent monkeys climb from volcanos and the perfumed pheasants roost in sun-dappled trees and that … was how I became a writer.”

Rodman closed out his speech with some advice for the audience.

“If a 20-something incel with a broccoli haircut and a SpaceX hat comes in and demands access to the database of who borrowed what book, if a vice provost in charge — of fear of exposure to litigation — tells you that certain thoughts have to be soft pedaled, certain books have to be re-shelled, certain words have to go, you just say, ‘Get out. Get out of here. Get out now. This is a library.’” 

Following Rodman’s speech, special guest and actor Jennifer Beals spoke. 

“The writer has always felt like a magical creator,” Beals said. “There are so many wand-carrying writers in this room. Thank you for creating the maps of human experience that help us all chart the course through pain and joy, failure, triumph and love.”

After Beals there was a series of musical performances by Thornton School of Music students Nolan Jack, Sofia Gomez and Sawyer Rabin, all sophomores majoring in popular music performance, who performed songs from Scripter nominee “A Complete Unknown” (2024). 

After a suspenseful build up, Rodman announced the winner of the Scripter Award for episodic series: Joshua Zetumer for the episode “The People in the Dirt” from “Say Nothing,” based on the nonfiction book “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” by Patrick Radden Keefe. Zetumer and company jumped up from their seats in excitement, and Zetumer made his way to the stage. 

“When I came across the book ‘Say Nothing,’ I was doing the thing that so many screenwriters do when they’ve given up hope. I was writing a comic book movie,” Zetumer said. “I had a dilemma: Do I continue down the path making the things that Hollywood wants to make, or do I take a real risk on a project I truly love, on a book that was really incredible, but a project that would most likely die on the vine? And I chose to spend five years of my life making ‘Say Nothing.’”

Zetumer is a USC alum, graduating in 2003 with an interdisciplinary major that he said he “made up” — a cross between writing and psychology with an emphasis on empathy and a minor in film. 

“There’s undoubtedly a lot of rules that I learned in screenwriting class … but then, more than that, it was the music,” Zetumer said. “Being close to [Thornton] … remembering trying to let music and a sense of rhythm guide my creative process, has always been a huge part of it for me and it’s definitely something that I really learned at USC.”

Following Zetumer’s speech, Rodman returned to the podium to announce the winner of the Scripter Award in film to Peter Straughan for “Conclave” (2024) based on the novel by Robert Harris. 

“In a way the [adaptation] process is an act of betrayal of one master for the other,” Straughan said. “You start off with a book that you love and respect, and you read it again and again, and you make notes, and you highlight it, and you end up with it thrown over your shoulder.”

The evening was surrounded by the process of adaptation and the crucial aspects of collaboration.

“It’s always been strange because you get up there and you get the award, but more than anyone else, it is the joint effort and the joint talent of so many people that put you there,” Straughan said in an interview with the Daily Trojan following the ceremony. “You know that you’re only one part of this big, brilliant machine that made the film.”