Dena Higley
American screenwriter

Dena Higley (born September 26, 1958) is an American writer, speaker and author.
Early life and career
Higley grew up in East County, San Diego and was the first of three children. She moved to Los Angeles as a teenager eventually graduating from the University of Southern California with a BFA in Theatre. Dena was previously the head writer of the daytime soap operas Days of Our Lives and One Life to Live. In February 2015, Soap Opera Digest confirmed Higley's imminent return to Days of Our Lives, this time alongside Josh Griffith. The pair begin writing for the series on February 16, 2015, with their material airing on August 19, 2015. Higley was fired again in January 2017; she was replaced by Ron Carlivati. Higley, formerly a member of Writers Guild of America West, left and maintained financial core status during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike.
Positions held
Days of Our Lives
Head Writer: March 7, 2003 - August 8, 2003; April 23, 2008 – August 25, 2011
Co-Head Writer: August 11, 2003 - August 18, 2003; August 19, 2015 - July 18, 2017)
Script writer: September 19, 2003 - November 26, 2004
Associate Head Writer: September 16, 1985 - January 24, 1986; October 20, 1986 – March 6, 2003; August 19, 2003 - October 24, 2003
One Life to Live
Head Writer: December 13, 2004 - September 10, 2007
Personal life
Dena has been married for 25 years to Mark and is a mother of four children, including an autistic son Connor, a daughter Jensen, an adopted daughter with physical disability, from Vietnam Adelle, and an adopted son Helio, from Ethiopia. Her current non-fiction book Momaholic: Crazy Confessions of a Helicopter Parent was released April 14, 2012.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Dena Higley” as american screenwriter. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american screenwriter. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5256542. VIAF identifies the subject as 222808927. The Library of Congress control number is n2012002324. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958, 2015, 2017 and 2007.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Dena Higley”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Dena Higley primary sources, Dena Higley archive and Dena research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dena Higley”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Dena Higley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.