Led by head writer Ron Carlivati, the writing team of “Days of our Lives” took home the Writers Guild Award in the category of Daytime Drama for the second year in a row during tonight’s virtual presentation of “The 74th Annual Writers Guild Awards,” hosted by Ashley Nicole Black (“A Black Lady Sketch Show”). Comedian Eugene Cordero presented.
Carlivati accepted the award in a pre-taped speech in which he jokingly stated, “We may or may not have won but either way I’m gonna keep this one.” He was referring to the fact that all nominees were required to record acceptance speeches for the virtual ceremony in the event they won.
In Carlivati’s full speech, which can be watched in its entirety below, the writer said, “Thank you so much to the Writers Guild for this award which we may or may not have won but either way I’m gonna keep this one. Thanks to everybody at NBC, especially Michael and Sharice. Your support of ‘Days of our Lives’ has been incredible. We did a mini-series with you this year for Peacock, we did a Christmas movie, which was great for the show and for the genre. Thanks to Ken Corday [executive producer], to Albert Alarr [co-executive producer], to our cast and crew at ‘DAYS’ who worked tirelessly to put on 250 episodes a year, especially over the past two years has been amazing, and lastly to my team of writers I could not do my job without you, especially Ryan Quan. There wouldn’t be a ‘Days of our Lives’ without you.”
In addition to Carlivati and Quan, the “Days of our Lives” writing team winning the award included writers Lorraine Broderick, Joanna Cohen, Carolyn Culliton, Richard Culliton, Jamey Giddens, David Kreizman, Rebecca McCarty, Dave Ryan, Katherine D. Schock and Elizabeth Snyder.
The soap submitted three scripts, including Doug (Bill Hayes) reveals to Marlena (Deidre Hall) that he’s possessed, Thanksgiving when Doug and Julie (Susan Seaforth Hayes) battled Marlena and then the Christmas Day exorcism.
“DAYS” beat out the writing teams of “General Hospital” and “The Young and the Restless.”
Watch Carlivati’s acceptance speech below.