Eudora Alice Welty was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum.
Kathryn Ann Bigelow is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. She has received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010.
Alice Ann Munro was a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Her work tends to move forward and backward in time, with integrated short story cycles.
Chris Joseph Columbus is an American filmmaker. Born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, Columbus studied film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he developed an interest in filmmaking. After writing screenplays for several teen comedies in the mid-1980s, including Gremlins, The Goonies, and Young Sherlock Holmes, he made his directorial debut with a teen adventure, Adventures in Babysitting (1987). Columbus gained recognition soon after with the highly successful Christmas comedy Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).
Lorrie Moore is an American writer, critic, and essayist. She is best known for her short stories, some of which have won major awards. Since 1984, she has also taught creative writing.
Bryce Dallas Howard is an American actress and director. Howard is the eldest child of filmmaker Ron Howard. She studied acting at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and while portraying Rosalind in a 2003 production of As You Like It, Howard caught the attention of director M. Night Shyamalan, who cast her as a blind girl in the thriller The Village (2004) and a naiad in Lady in the Water (2006).
Sarah Ann Waters is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.
A mammy is a U.S. historical stereotype depicting Black women, usually enslaved, who did domestic work, among nursing children. The fictionalized mammy character is often visualized as a dark-skinned woman with a motherly personality. The origin of the mammy figure stereotype is rooted in the history of slavery in the United States, as enslaved women were often tasked with domestic and childcare work in American slave-holding households. The mammy caricature was used to create a narrative of Black women being content within the institution of slavery among domestic servitude. The mammy stereotype associates Black women with domestic roles, and it has been argued that it, alongside segregation and discrimination, limited job opportunities for Black women during the Jim Crow era.
Gemma Files is a Canadian horror writer, journalist, and film critic. Her short story, "The Emperor's Old Bones", won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Short Story of 1999. Five of her short stories were adapted for the television series The Hunger.
Carmelina Marchetta is an Australian writer and teacher. Marchetta is best known as the author of teen novels, Looking for Alibrandi, Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road. She has twice been awarded the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers, in 1993 and 2004. For Jellicoe Road she won the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, recognizing the year's best book for young adults.
Viola Davis is an American actress and film producer. Known for her work across screen and stage, her accolades include both the Triple Crown of Acting and the EGOT. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her ninth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
Octavia Lenora Spencer is an American actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award, in addition to a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Bedtime Stories is a 2008 American fantasy comedy film directed by Adam Shankman from a screenplay by Matt Lopez and Tim Herlihy based on a story by Lopez. It stars Adam Sandler in his first appearance in a family film alongside Keri Russell, Guy Pearce, Aisha Tyler, Russell Brand, Richard Griffiths, Teresa Palmer, Lucy Lawless, and Courteney Cox. In the film, when a hotel handyman's stories to his niece and nephew come true, his stories become more outlandish. Sandler's production company Happy Madison and Andrew Gunn's company Gunn Films co-produced the film with Walt Disney Pictures.
Kathryn Stockett is an American novelist. She is known for her 2009 debut novel, The Help, which is about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s.
The Help is a 2011 period drama film written and directed by Tate Taylor and based on Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel of the same name. The film features an ensemble cast, including Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson, and Sissy Spacek. The film and novel recount the story of a young white woman and aspiring journalist Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan. The story focuses on her relationship with two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, during the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi. In an attempt to become a legitimate journalist and writer, Skeeter decides to write a book from the point of view of the maids, exposing the racism they face as they work for white families. Black domestic workers in 1960s United States were referred to as "the help", hence the title of the journalistic exposé, the novel and the film. "The Help" brings to light the challenges and discrimination that African American people faced.
Tate Taylor is an American filmmaker and actor. Taylor is best known for directing The Help (2011), Get On Up (2014), and The Girl on the Train (2016).
The 10th Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards were given out on December 5, 2011.
Ahna O'Reilly is an American actress. She is best known for her role in the film The Help (2011).
The Help is a 2011 period comedy-drama film written and directed by Tate Taylor and based on Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel of the same name. The film features an ensemble cast, including Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer, and Emma Stone. Two soundtrack albums were released for the film: an original soundtrack and an original score. Music producer Thomas Newman, music supervisor Jennifer Hawks, director Tate Taylor, worked on both the soundtracks as the executive producer, while Newman also composed the film score. The soundtrack album was released by Geffen Records and DreamWorks Records on August 4, 2011, while Varèse Sarabande released the score album on September 6.
