As Soap Central previously reported, the Writers Guild of America handed ABC's General Hospital this year's award for best daytime drama writing team, and the organization has now released video footage of head writer Ron Carlivati and other members of the soap's writing team accepting the coveted award.

Former soap actress Abigail Spencer (ex-Becca Tyree, All My Children) presented the category during the ceremony, which was held in Los Angeles on February 14. After Spencer made a quick joke about her past soap opera days, Carlivati took the stage and shared a few sentiments about the daytime industry.

"I know a lot of people have this perception about soap operas, that they're campy, they're over the top, the stories are all about amnesia, and evil twins, and people coming back from the dead. And as someone who has been doing this for almost 20 years now, I am here to tell you that this is 100 percent true," he joked. "That being said, to me, soaps are also so much more. Soaps are unique and they're special. We are on almost every day. I know there are people in this room that complain about writing 26 episodes a year, we write 260. We get to explore all of the different genres: romance, action-adventure, comedy, mystery, fantasy, and we get to tackle social issues. Soaps did the first abortion story, the first AIDS story, so we have this wonderful variety. Over the course of the past few years, people were saying soaps were done, that our time had come and gone, but we're not gone. We have continued to not only survive, but thrive. GH is about to celebrate its 52nd anniversary on the air, which makes me very happy. And I think it makes a lot of people very happy. After all, who doesn't like a good back-from-the-dead story?"

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