Donor Spotlight: Joseph Dougherty
Introducing another edition of Donor Spotlight, the blog series where we highlight donors to the Writers Guild Foundation and their reasons for giving. We’re only able to provide our programs and resources for the screenwriting community because of our donors’ generous support. Thank you to our spotlighted donors — and all of our donors — for your generosity!
Archive Donor, Joseph Dougherty
Joseph Dougherty began his career on the television series, thirtysomething, for which he won several Emmys and a Humanitas prize; additionally, he has worked on Pretty Little Liars, Judging Amy, Saving Grace, Once and Again, Saved, and Presidio Med. He also wrote the HBO movies, Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, and Cast a Deadly Spell, as well as the latter’s sequel, Witch Hunt (which was nominated for a CableACE for Writing a Movie or Miniseries in 1995).
Dougherty donated scripts to the Writers Guild Foundation Library and Archive after assessing he had items in storage that could be of value to other writers, and graciously took the time to answer questions as to why donating these works was important.
How did you first become aware of the Writers Guild Foundation?
I can’t pinpoint that for you. I joined the Guild before the 1988 strike and it was the strike that brought home to me the importance of my union. It’s only natural that one of the purposes of the Guild is to preserve the history of the craft. Especially for the benefit of future generations of writers.
What made you realize that you wanted to donate your materials to the Writers Guild Foundation Library and Archive?
I think the idea of donating materials to the Writers Guild Foundation Library and Archive sneaks up on a writer. If you’ve had a career of any reasonable length, you collect not only your produced work, but evidence of your process. You start a bumpy period of self-assessment that, if you’re lucky, ends up with deciding there’s something in all those pages that might be of value to others. Then you call the Library and are very grateful when they invite you and your boxes to come over.
Do you have any specific thoughts on leaving a legacy through your donation of materials?
It’s a confirmation when the Library accepts your material. And a writer can survive a long time on a good confirmation. You’re in the Archive with the writers you admired. You’re part of the continuum, the combined legacy. It’s also a message in a bottle situation. It’s an act of faith to think that someone will read the message and understand. We may never know, but there’s always the possibility of connecting. Frankly, there’s comfort in that.
What do you hope others will learn by being able to access the materials that you donated?
There are completed shooting scripts in my donation, but there are also multiple production drafts, outlines, and other documents. I think this will show the organic process of writing and production.
Are there any specific scripts amongst the ones you donated that you really hope others will look at, or something that has a really interesting history?
I have to assume if anybody dips into my material they’ll be coming to it initially for the two socially significant series I worked on, thirtysomething and Pretty Little Liars. I like the idea of someone going through those scripts, separated by more than twenty years.
I’ll flag the scripts for Cast a Deadly Spell (original title Lovecraft) as the triumph of the trunk piece. I wrote the first draft when I didn’t have a career… and there was considerable doubt I would ever have one. I wrote that movie to encourage myself to keep going. It was a promise and a prod, and most of that first draft can be found in the shooting draft and finished film.
Interview conducted by Archive Intern, Shannon Muir Broden. Want to learn what processing this collection was like? Check out Shannon’s other blog post, The Lifecycle of an Archive Donation, here.
To learn more about the WGF Archive, including how to donate, see https://www.wgfoundation.org/archive