Priscilla Kay Alden (born October 24, 1946) is an American television writer and the former head writer for the soap opera, The Young and the Restless.
Alden began writing for The Young and the Restless as a script writer in 1974 while researching her dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.[1] She was promoted to associate head writer in 1987, then to co-head writer in 1997.[2]
She took over as head writer the following year when series co-creator William J. Bell stepped down from the position. With Alden as head writer, the show lost about two million viewers (most of the loss occurred in 2004 when Alden co-wrote the show with longtime Y&R scribe and producer John F. Smith), but all soap operas during that period experienced a similar scale of massive audience erosion.[citation needed]
She quit The Young and the Restless in late 2006, and was then hired by Brian Frons, president of ABC Daytime, to consult on its serials All My Children, General Hospital and One Life to Live. She left ABC Daytime after declining All My Children's head writer position in Spring 2007, and was hired by Bradley Bell in May 2007 to be an associate head writer for another CBS Daytime drama, The Bold and the Beautiful. On July 18, 2008, it was announced that Alden would be appointed co-head writer of The Bold and the Beautiful in the coming weeks.[3]
Alden, formerly a member of Writers Guild of America, East, left and maintained financial core status while working for The Bold and the Beautiful during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike.[4]
In 2012, Alden was spotted on the set of The Young and the Restless for the taping of the show's 10,000th episode, leading many to believe she'd re-joined the show as a writer or story consultant.[5]
However, this never came to pass. On September 21, 2016, Daytime Confidential reported that after ten years since being with the show, Alden had been hired to be story consultant at Y&R, under Sally Sussman's tenure as Head writer.[6]
On July 31, 2017, Daytime Confidential announced that both Alden and Sussman would be departing from the show, with Mal Young being named as the new head writer.[7]
There is a scholarship in Alden's name from Emporia State University, in Emporia, Kansas.
She has three children and lives with her husband in Illinois.[citation needed]
Writers Guild of America Award