ATWT Wins WGA Award

The 61st Annual Writers Guild of America (WGA) Awards were handed out tonight in ceremonies in New York and Los Angeles honoring outstanding acheivement in television, radio, news, promotional writing, and graphic animation.

AS THE WORLD TURNS won the WGA Award in the "Daytime Serials" category. Jean Passanante and her team (Leah Laiman, Courtney Simon, Lisa Connor, David A. Levinson, Peter Brash, Richard Culliton, Susan Dansby, Cheryl Davis, Leslie Nipkow) won for the second time in three years.


ATWT beat out ONE LIFE TO LIVE's Ron Carlivati and his team (Carolyn Culliton, Elizabeth Page, Aida Croal, Shelly Altman, Janet Iacobuzio, Christopher Van Etten, Anna Theresa Cascio, Fred Myers). ATWT and OLTL were the only nominees this year.

This is Passanante's fourth WGA win this decade, including two wins for her work on ALL MY CHILDREN. Carlivati now has three WGA nominations, but no wins. This was his first nominee as head writer. Carlivati does have a Daytime Emmy win from last year to his credit.

The awards covered the time period of December 1, 2007 and November 30, 2008. Three scripts could be submitted by each show and only the script was judged, not the produced episode.

MAD MEN won over FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS and others in the "Dramatic Series" category.

Milk won for Best Original Screenplay, while Slumdog Millionaire took home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay