At an event held on February 9, 2013 on the USC campus, authors Joshuah Bearman and Antonio J. Mendez and screenwriter Chris Terrio received the 25th annual USC Libraries Scripter Award for their contributions to the motion picture Argo. Selection committee co-chair Howard Rodman announced the winners at the black-tie event on Saturday, Feb. 9, at USC’s Doheny Library.
Scripter, established by the Friends of the USC Libraries in 1988, honors the screenwriter or screenwriters of the year’s most accomplished cinematic adaptation as well as the author of the written work upon which the screenplay is based. Scripter is the only award of its kind that recognizes authors of the original work alongside the adapting screenwriters.
USC Libraries Dean Catherine Quinlan welcomed the attendees gathered in Los Angeles Times Reference Room of USC’s historic Edward L. Doheny Library. During the evening, the USC Libraries also honored Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana with the Literary Achievement Award for their body of work to date. USC President C. L. Max Nikias presented the honor.
“With deep reserves of imagination and intellect, Mr. McMurtry and Ms. Ossana inspire USC’s entire creative-arts community,” Nikias said. “And for this, we warmly salute them.”
Over the course of their writing partnership McMurtry and Ossana have collaborated on dozens of novels and screenplays, including “Brokeback Mountain,” which won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as the award-winning miniseries “Streets of Laredo,” “Dead Man’s Walk,” and “Johnson County War.” They are currently collaborating on the screen adaptation of Paulette Jiles’s novel “The Color of Lightning.”
Pictured from left to right in the photo above: USC President C. L. Max Nikias, USC Libraries Dean Catherine Quinlan, Scripter Award winner and writer Joshuah Bearman, and Literary Achievement Award honorees Diana Ossana and Larry McMurty, selection committee co-chair Howard Rodman, and Friends of the USC Libraries board president Glenn Sonnenberg.