Writers of “American Fiction,” “Slow Horses” Win 36th-annual Scripter Awards

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The authors and screenwriters behind the film “American Fiction” and the series “Slow Horses” won the 36th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards on the evening of Saturday, Mar. 2. Selection committee chair Howard Rodman announced the winners at a black-tie ceremony at USC’s Doheny Memorial Library.

The Scripter Awards recognize the year’s most accomplished adaptations of the written word for the screen, including both feature-length films and episodic series.

In a Scripter first, novelist Mick Herron and screenwriter Will Smith repeated as winners in the episodic series category. They took home the award for their contributions to the episode “Negotiating with Tigers” from season three of “Slow Horses,” which Smith adapted from Herron’s book “Real Tigers.”

Smith could not attend due to work on the next season of “Slow Horses” but relayed his sentiments through Herron.

“This award is very important to me,” Smith said, “because it also celebrates the author, without whom the show would not exist.”

In the film category, author Percival Everett and screenwriter/director Cord Jefferson won for their contributions to “American Fiction,” based on Everett’s novel “Erasure.”

Jefferson told the audience that he read Everett’s book in December 2020.

“It felt like I was reading a book written specifically for me,” he said. “It felt like I understood what was going on in these characters with the story at a molecular level.”

Everett’s win marks another Scripter milestone, as he is the first USC professor honored with the prize.

Saturday also marked USC Libraries dean Melissa Just’s first turn as host of the annual ceremony since her appointment last November. In her opening remarks, Just hailed libraries as creators of community and belonging.

“I believe libraries are great connectors of people, like all of us here tonight, with information, ideas, and the preserved record of human knowledge and experience,” she said. “We enable people to gather, to learn together, and to find common ground with each other and with the past--and in doing so, create a brighter future.”

Earlier in the evening, Linda Cassady accepted the Ex Libris Award, which honors exceptional commitment to the USC Libraries, on behalf of her late husband, George Cassady. Cassady was a longtime USC Board of Councilors member and in 2000 donated the G. Edward, M.D. and Margaret Elizabeth, R.N. Lewis Carroll collection, one of the world’s most significant collections of works by and related to the “Alice in Wonderland” author.

In-kind donors included Andrew Murray Vineyards.