This evening, the Writers Guild of America announced the winners of the 2008 Writers Guild Awards for outstanding achievement in writing for screen, television, documentary, radio, promotion, and videogames during 2007. As a result of the writers strike against the AMPTP companies, WGA, West, chose not to hold its annual awards ceremony in Los Angeles. However, on Saturday night, the Writers Guild, East, hosted an informal reception at the Hudson Theatre to honor the nominees and recipients.
Film Honors
Juno, written by Diablo Cody, won for best original screenplay, while No Country for Old Men--screenplay by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, which was based on the bovel by Cormac McCarthy, took the prize for adapted screenplay. Alex Gibney won best documentary for Taxi to the Dark Side, an in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay
TV Winners
HBO's The WIRE, currently in its fifth and final season, won for best dramatic series. The show is written Ed Burns, Chris Collins, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon, and William F. Zorzi. Meanwhile, NBC's 30 Rock, written by Brett Baer, Jack Burditt, Kay Cannon, Robert Carlock, Tina Fey, Dave Finkel, Daisy Gardner, Donald Glover, Matt Hubbard, Jon Pollack, John Riggi, Tami Sagher, and Ron Weiner, won for best comedy. Best new series is AMC's first original program, Mad Men, which debuted last summer. The series is written by Lisa Albert, Bridget Bedard, Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton, Tom Palmer, Chris Provenzano, Robin Veith, and Matthew Weiner.
HBO's The Sopranos won for episodic drama for "The Second Coming," written by Terence Winter, and NBC's The Office won in the comedy category for "The Job," written by Paul Lieberstein and Michael Schur. Other TV Winner were Long Form, Original: Pandemic, written by Bryce Zabel and Jackie Zabel, for the Hallmark Channel; Long Form, Adaption: TNT's The Company: A Story of the CIA, teleplay byKen Nolan, based on the novel by Robert Littell; Animation: "Kill Gill Volumes 1&2" from FOX's The Simpsons, written by Jeff Westbrook; and Comedy/Variety: Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, written byBryan Adams, Michael Brumm, Stephen Colbert, Rich Dahm, Eric Drysdale, Rob Dubbin, Glenn Eichler, Peter Grosz, Peter Gwinn, Barry Julien, Jay Katsir, Laura Krafft, Frank Lesser, Tom Purcell, and Allison Silverman.
Additional awards were given out for television, as well as documentary, radio, promotion, and videogames. For more information on the 2008 Writers Guild Awards, and a complete list of winners, please go to www.wga.org or www.wgaeast.org.
