Dena Higley (born September 26, 1958) is an American writer, speaker and author who grew up in East County, San Diego, 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 has been married for 25 years and is a mother of four children, including an autistic son, a daughter, an adopted daughter from Vietnam and an adopted son from Ethiopia. Her current non-fiction book Momaholic: Crazy Confessions of a Helicopter Parent was released April 14, 2012. 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.