This page discusses the controversy surrounding the authorship of Search and Rescue, specifically Anne James’ assertions that Daniel Wade removed her name from the work and that she is co-author of the play. Scroll down for James’ full statement.
Statement regarding the authorship of Search and Rescue
My name is Anne James. The following statement is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge.
The Irish writer Daniel Wade and I cohabitated from early 2016 through 2018. Since I was working as an editor in the publishing industry, he frequently gave me work to edit. I edited and produced his debut play The Collector, which was staged in January 2017.
In January of 2018, Daniel showed me a draft of a radio play entitled Search and Rescue, in which a captain suffers survivor’s guilt over the loss of his crew. The plot of this draft radio play was substantially different from the theatrical version which is the subject of this website, and as yet had no relationship with the Epic of Gilgamesh. Daniel wanted to turn this into a full-length play, and asked me for help.
I immediately seized on parallels with Gilgamesh (Mariner Books, 2003), which I’d studied under its author, Professor Herbert Mason, at Boston University. I introduced Daniel to Prof. Mason’s work (I had a copy of the book at my home) and I mapped out a new, expanded plot arc for the play, creating new scenes to match those of Prof. Mason’s book.
Daniel and I worked as co-writers on the play through November of 2018. Considering the extent of my involvement in writing, we mutually decided it would be appropriate to be named as co-authors; in fact, by the time we halted work on the play, Daniel had moved my name to first position, due to the significance of my contributions. We had nearly finished writing the play when the relationship ended in December 2018.
Without my knowledge, without contacting me, and without naming me as co-author, Daniel submitted Search and Rescue for the Eamon Keane Full Length Play Award at Listowel Writers’ Week, and was announced as the winner in June 2022.
I reached out to Daniel via email on 2 September 2022, offering to resolve the dispute privately, but received no response. Despite local press coverage of the dispute and my posts on social media, Daniel has offered neither acknowledgement nor apology. The dispute remains unresolved.
Timeline
14 Sep 2022: Books Ireland covers the controversy with an article citing Twitter posts from Anne Manter James and Daniel Wade.
2 Sep 2022: Daniel posts a statement on Twitter claiming that “there is no factual basis to these allegations”.
1 Sep 2022: Anne replies to a comment on Twitter, saying that she’s made screenshare recordings of the Google Doc where she co-wrote the Search and Rescue script with Daniel, “just in case it mysteriously gets deleted off the cloud”.
Less than five hours later, Daniel revokes Anne’s access to the shared Google Doc.
30 Aug 2022: Anne condemns Daniel’s plagiarism in a Twitter thread.
3 Jun 2022: Daniel posts news of winning the Eamon Keane Full Length Play Award with Search and Rescue at Listowel Writers’ Week in Ireland.
4 Feb 2019: Anne’s name is deleted from the play’s authors in the shared Google Doc.
Mid-Dec 2018: End of relationship. No further communication between the co-authors.
6 Nov 2018: Daniel sends Anne Google Calendar invites to work on the play at their home every Thursday evening for the remainder of the month of November.
4 Nov 2018: Co-authors make use of the FRINGE LAB Studio 1 for the full day. They commit to finishing the play, with the aim of securing a venue for the production by January 2019.
June 2018: Following Deadline Dramaturgy, the co-authors make significant progress on the play.
19 June 2018: The co-authors attend Deadline Dramaturgy, a workshop for playwrights at the FRINGE LAB, Dublin.
Mid-Feb 2018: The co-authors begin writing in earnest.
11 Feb 2018: Daniel creates a Google Doc for working on the Search and Rescue script and assigns Anne co-editor access to the Doc.
Late Jan 2018: In order to ensure accuracy when writing about the Ishtar and the play’s rescue scene, the co-authors develop a questionnaire for trawlermen and seek out interview subjects on Facebook. Shortly afterward, the co-authors interview a group of former trawlermen at a pub near Dún Laoghaire, Ireland.
8 Jan 2018: Daniel shares radio play script Search and Rescue with Anne via email, with the intention that together, they will rewrite the radio play script into a playscript for live theatre. Anne connects the character Gillen with Gilgamesh, and creates a narrative arc chart, plotting scenes for Search and Rescue to parallel the narrative of Herbert Mason’s Gilgamesh.
29 Dec 2017: Anne sends Daniel a recording of an WWI-era Egyptian popular song that the character Essam could sing to himself onboard the Ishtar.
7 Mar 2017: Daniel Wade and Anne Manter James attend the Blue Raincoat Theatre Company’s production of Shackleton at the Project Arts Centre. Following the show, they discuss the possibility of converting Daniel’s Search and Rescue radio play to a live production, and how to construct a ship that actors might climb and inhabit.
Search and Rescue 