Emmy award-winning soap opera writer and actress Courtney Simon (ex-Dr. Lynn Michaels, As the World Turns; ex-Dr. Constance Peterson, The City; ex-Kathy Phillips, Search For Tomorrow; ex-Dr. Anna Tolan, All My Children; ex-June Reiner, Another World; ex-Dinah Buckley, Guiding Light), who has written for numerous daytime dramas in her lustrous career, will be given the Writers Guild of America East's Richard B. Jablow Award during the 69th annual WGA Awards on February 19, 2017.
The award, established in 1978, recognizes devoted service to the Guild, and Simon has most certainly earned it. Not only has she been a Guild member since 1980, she has served on the WGAE Council since 2007, where she's been active in lobbying efforts to promote a diversity-based tax credit in New York State. In addition, she co-chairs the WGAE Diversity Coalition, is a member of the Awards Committee, and has been chair of the Daytime Committee.
Simon got her start in the writing world while starring on Search For Tomorrow in the 1970s and early 1980s. She began to contribute to various daytime dramas and steadily worked as a breakdown script writer for most of her acting career, which spanned from 1970, when she took on the role of GL's Dinah, to 2005, when she bowed out of playing ATWT's Lynn.
Her writing credits include Search For Tomorrow, Santa Barbara, Loving, Guiding Light, General Hospital, All My Children, One Life to Live, As the World Turns, and Another World.
"Not only is Courtney Simon a gifted writer who has mastered the intricacies of daytime drama, she has been a dedicated member of the Writers Guild of America East council and a hardworking contributor to a number of union committees, most recently as co-chair of our Diversity Coalition," said WGA East president Michael Winship. "No one is more deserving of our Jablow Award, presented to someone who has so thoroughly devoted herself to the Writers Guild of America East."
The 2017 Writers Guild Awards ceremony in New York will be hosted by Lewis Black.
For curious fans, Simon is married to soap alum Peter Simon (ex-Ed Bauer, GL; ex-Ian McFarland, ATWT; ex-Scott Phillips, Search For Tomorrow), and they are the parents of Kate Hall, who recently returned to GH in the position of scriptwriter after a brief stint at The Young and the Restless.
Would you like to leave a congratulatory message for Simon? Are you intrigued by Simon's writing and acting history within the genre? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
