Spending over 12 years as a scriptwriter at “The Bold and the Beautiful,” Daytime Emmy Award winner Michele Val Jean is exiting the popular drama series.

After two years at “Days of our Lives,” Jamey Giddens has opted against renewing his contract and will exit the series’ writing team next month.

Former CBS Daytime head honcho Barbara Bloom is heading back to daytime television, this time as part of the writing team at “General Hospital.”

“The Young and the Restless'” Mal Young to pull double duty as head writer and executive producer following the departure of Sally Sussman and Kay Alden.

“General Hospital” has promoted Chris Van Etten to the role of co-head writer. He replaces recently retired Jean Passanante in the position.

Jean Passanante, who has spearheaded “General Hospital” alongside Shelly Altman since July 2015, officially retires from soap opera writing.

Ron Carlivati is officially ready to hit a home-run for NBC’s “Days of our Lives.” Will you be watching?

It’s been months since it was announced that Ron Carlivati would be taking over head writing duties at “Days of our Lives” and we’re finally just weeks away from seeing where he plans to take the folks of Salem.

Is Dena Higley‘s reign as co-head writer of “Days of our Lives” over before it even hits the air? According to a report by Daytime Confidential last week, Higley asked for, and was granted, a leave of absence from the show citing personal reasons.

As previously reported, “General Hospital” will soon be saying goodbye to scribe Ron Carlivati and hello again to co-head writers Shelly Altman and Jean Passanante when the team officially takes over writing duties next month, with material not expected to fully hit the screen until mid-October, according to insiders. But what forced ABC to make a change in its writing regime? Ratings, of course! Thirteen consecutive weeks of ratings lows that is.

With 13 consecutive weeks of record low ratings in the key Women 18-49 sales demo, ABC announced today that it has decided to oust “General Hospital’s” current head writer, Ron Carlivati, and replace him with newly appointed co-head writers Shelly Altman and Jean Passanante. The duo, who will officially take over writing reins beginning Monday, August 10, previously served together in the same capacity at CBS’ “The Young and the Restless” up until January of this year. They won two consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series Writing Team for their work on “Y&R” during their tenure.

If a year ago someone bet me that a modern-day soap opera would not only put their African-American characters in a front burner storyline that was deeply entrenched in social issues, which had nothing to do with the color of one’s skin, race or ethnicity, I’d owe that person plenty of money right about now.

In life you set goals for yourself, or at least you try to. You even have expectations for yourself that you hope will eventually get fulfilled. In my case, over the years I had set a specific list of goals that included certain expectations as they related to one another. Earlier this year, I officially crossed one of the major things off that list. It wasn’t easy as it had plagued me for nearly a decade. A stepping stone you might call it. I took up something many years ago that eventually became impossible to maintain on a full-time basis. I decided to do it part-time. I went from part-time to being very part-time. Later you could say I dropped it completely in order to concentrate on the things that either gave me personal joy and fulfillment (this site) or put several well earned dollars in my pocket. I imagine I’m not the only one out there who’s ever had pull some sort of double duty in their lifetime. Right?

After several months of disastrous ratings returns that has left many in the industry wondering if “Days of our Lives” would survive its next renewal talks between NBC, Sony Pictures Television and Corday Productions, producers of the soap, the daytime drama series will welcome back veteran writer Dena Higley, and former “One Life to Live” and “The Young and the Restless” head writer Josh Griffith, as its new head writers. The two replace outgoing head writers Gary Tomlin and Christopher Whitesell.

Late last month we released a new layout of our website that was to allow us to present our content in manner we’ve been working towards for some time. Unfortunately, the design came with some issues that needed to be cleaned up. That cleanup left the site virtually silent news and interview wise. That’s now over.

If things look a little bit different around here it’s because things are different. As promised on our social networks, we have been working very hard behind the scenes leading up to this Thanksgiving holiday weekend to bring you the best user experience at Soap Opera Network, which not only includes the most up-to-date soap opera related content, but also a more visually appealing layout with page speed in mind. As a result of our new design, there will be plenty of new features we’ll be able to play around with that’ll provide our readers with the best presentation of our content, including this puppy.

From re-runs of soap classics “Dallas,” “Dynasty,” “Another World,” “Port Charles,” and “Falcon Crest,” to the launches of original series “SoapCenter,” “Soap Talk” and “General Hospital: Night Shift,” SOAPnet was defined as the “new way to watch soaps” for much of its near 14-year run. With just 2 days left before SOAPnet is no more, we thought it would be a great opportunity to look back at the inaugural year of a network that gave diehard soap fans their own platform to shout with glee through the death of a network that outlived its purpose.

Celebrating its 12th year online, Soap Opera Network is currently experiencing its biggest year on record in terms of page views and unique visitors. This year we’ve been able to provide exclusive insight into the world of soaps while bringing readers inside the minds of some of their favorite characters and actors featured on “The Bold and the Beautiful,” “Days of our Lives,” “General Hospital” and “The Young and the Restless.” As we come off of the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, we’re gearing up for even more features in the coming weeks and the new year including the return of the SON Awards along with the annual Airhog Awards, while introducing new features such as our first annual best and worst of the year report and our new best of soaps weekly poll highlighting the best actors, best soaps, and best storylines of the week for both daytime and primetime soap opera related programming. To better present all this content we’ve made significant alterations to our website design that gets rid of clutter and inactive coding that previously prevented the site from being presented in the best way possible. The new design codenamed “refresh” was launched today.

Last summer I was lucky enough to be included as an interviewee in the new soap opera themed documentary appropriately titled “Soap Life,” which follows the life, and possible death, of daytime soap operas. I can’t believe I forgot all about it and didn’t realize it until this morning!

With news of Gary Tomlin and Christopher Whitesell’s ascension to the top of the “Days of our Lives” writing team after the NBC daytime soap let go Marlene McPherson and Darrell Ray Thomas, Jr., less than a year after the two were hired to replace Dena Higley, Soap Opera Digest in its newest issue (issue dated April 16, 2012) is reporting that Tomlin and Whitesell has added the multiple Emmy award winning talents of veteran writer Lorraine Broderick to its new regime.