Soap Opera
‘The Young and the Restless’ Backstage Shakeup as New Head Writing Team Named
Dan O’Connor and Jamey Giddens named as the new ‘Young and the Restless’ head writers, replacing Josh Griffith, who stepped down in June 2026.
The Young and the Restless fans got the news they’d been waiting for on Wednesday night when a new head writing team was finally named. According to TV Insider, veteran soap writers Dan O’Connor and Jamey Giddens have been tapped as the new creative force behind the 53-year-old CBS soap. Josh Griffith, who had served as the show’s head writer since 2019, stepped down in June.
A New Future for The Young and the Restless
Neither O’Connor nor Giddens has written for Y&R before, but both come with impressive soap opera resumes.
Giddens, who founded the soap opera website Daytime Confidential, currently serves on the writing team at Beyond the Gates, but also wrote for Days of our Lives and its spin-off Peacock mini-series Days of our Lives: Beyond Salem. The Y&R news comes just two weeks after Giddens received a pair of Daytime Emmy nominations for his work on both DAYS and Beyond the Gates.
O’Connor began his daytime career on the One Life to Live writing team and moved over to General Hospital in 2013 after OLTL was canceled. At GH, O’Connor served as co-head writer with Chris Van Etten, who is currently GH co-head writer with Elizabeth Korte. Giddens and O’Connor will be the first co-head writing team that Y&R has had since former GH co-head writers Michelle Altman and Jean Pasanante wrote for the soap in 2013.
Both Giddens and O’Connor are Daytime Emmy Award and Writers Guild of America Award winners.
The new writers will be taking over during some very key storylines that involve the return of Nikki Newman’s (Melody Thomas Scott) eyesight, as well as Cane (Billy Flynn) and Lily’s renewed romance, and the controversial redemption of bad boy Matt Clark. The writing change also comes soon after Y&R earned the most Emmy nominations this year with 16. The Daytime Emmys will be presented on October 30, while Y&R’s new head writing team gets to work next week.
