27 Women soap opera writers

Priscilla Kay Alden is an American television writer and the former head writer for the soap opera, The Young and the Restless.

Maria Adelaide Amaral is a Portuguese Brazilian playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. A good deal of her plays concern disaffected urban professionals. She has been classed as among the two major women playwrights of Brazil, the other being Leilah Assunção.

Three-time Emmy-winning writer Sheri Anderson is responsible for helming over 3000 hours of network television. She has been involved in every aspect of the writing process including long-term storyline, daily episode breakdowns, dialogue writing and editing, audition scenes and supervision of the writing staff, as well as having final say in casting. She is recognized as one of the creative forces behind the high romance era of soap opera in the 1980s, the most popular in the genre’s history.

Mary Martha Byrne is an American actress, singer and television writer. She played the role of Lily Walsh Snyder on the soap opera As the World Turns from 1985 to 1989, then again from 1993 to 2008; as well as, from 2000 to 2003, Lily's twin sister, Rose D'Angelo. Byrne has also appeared in other stage, television and movie roles, including the title role in the 1983 film Anna to the Infinite Power. She is currently executive producer of the digital drama series Anacostia, where she has played the role of Alexis Jordan since 2011. Byrne has won three Daytime Emmy Awards for acting.

Alicia Inés Botto, better known by her pen name, Nené Cascallar was an Argentine writer of radio plays and telenovelas. She wrote the screenplay of Fuego sagrado in 1950, and the book, A Lo Largo Del Camino, in 1951.

Nazrin Choudhury is a British screenwriter and actress of Bangladeshi descent, best known for her radio dramas and extensive work in American television.

Judy Farrell is an American actress most noted for her role as Nurse Able on the television comedy series M*A*S*H. She performed small roles in several other television series, then later wrote 13 episodes for the soap opera Port Charles.

Patricia Paola Fernández Silanes, better known as Nona Fernández, is a Chilean actress, author, and screenwriter. She is a recipient of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, and the Altazor prize.

Delia Fiallo was a Cuban author and screenwriter who lived in Miami, Florida. She was one of the most distinguished representatives of the contemporary romance novel, dabbling in various genres which appeared in her literary output.

Ruth Brooks Flippen (1921–1981) was an American screenwriter and television writer.

Marissa Garrido Arozamena was a Mexican telenovela playwright and writer who was most active in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. She wrote forty-five adaptations and sixty-five original stories for television. Her most successful creation was La leona in 1961. The last telenovela she wrote was Besos prohibidos for TV Azteca in 1999. She was the sister of Mexican actress Amparo Garrido.

Jill Golick is a Canadian screenwriter, story editor, digital creator and blogger.

Elizabeth Harrower Seabold was an American actress and television writer.

Jane Bethel Leslie was an American actress and screenwriter. In her career spanning half a century, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Laurel Award in 1964, a Tony Award in 1986, and a CableACE Award in 1988.

Judy Lewis was an American actress, writer, producer, and therapist. She was the secret biological daughter of actors Loretta Young and Clark Gable.

Joan McCall is an American screenwriter, producer, actress and religious minister.

Carol Mendelsohn is an American television producer, showrunner, and screenwriter, known for her work on the crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Agnes Nixon was an American television writer and producer, and the creator of the ABC soap operas One Life to Live, All My Children, and Loving.

Martha Mills Noxon is an American television and film writer, director, and producer. She is best known for her work as a screenwriter and executive producer on the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). She was also executive producer, writer, and creator of the Bravo comedy-drama series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce (2015–18) and the Lifetime drama series UnREAL (2015–18). She was an executive producer of the CBS medical drama series Code Black (2015–17).

Monica Owusu-Breen is an American television producer and screenwriter.

Glória Maria Rebelo Ferrante is a Brazilian Emmy-winning screenwriter.

Irna Phillips was an American scriptwriter, screenwriter, casting agent and actress. She is best remembered for pioneering a format of the daytime soap opera in the United States geared specifically toward women. Phillips created, produced, and wrote several radio and television daytime serials throughout her career, including Guiding Light, As the World Turns, and Another World. She was also a mentor to several other pioneers of the American daytime soap opera, including Agnes Nixon and William J. Bell.

Jean Rouverol was an American author, actress and screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.

Diane Ruggiero-Wright is an American television writer and producer. Her credits include That's Life, Veronica Mars, Free Agents, Dirty Sexy Money, Big Shots, the Mythological X remake The Ex List and iZombie, which she co-created with Rob Thomas. With Thomas, she also co-wrote the script for the Veronica Mars film.

Elizabeth Snyder is an American television soap opera writer. She turned down the position of co-Head Writer of One Life to Live in November 2012. That position was accepted by Thom Racina.

Yolanda Vargas Dulché de la Parra was a Mexican writer principally known for the creation of the comic book character of Memín Pinguín and various telenovelas for Mexican television. She began her writing career as a way to supplement income for several newspapers, creating Memín Penguín in 1943. By 1960, she has successfully published a number of comic books, encouraging her husband, Guillermo de la Parra, to write as well. The two went on to create various successful telenovelas including Rubí, which has been redone for both television and film. In total Varga Dulché published over sixty titles in both Mexico and abroad.

Sally Anne Wainwright is an English television writer, producer, and director from Yorkshire. Early in her career, Wainwright worked as a playwright, and as a scriptwriter on the long-running radio serial drama The Archers. In the 1990s, Wainwright began her television career, and, in 2000, created her first original drama series At Home with the Braithwaites (2000–2003).