None of that was her fault. She got the job during the writers' strike & when the strike ended, AW chose to stick with her. Frankly, as much as I like Lemay, they made the right call. I didn't care for much of his writing toward the end of his run and Donna revitalized the show.

I guess if the actors, the show and the network are happy with the writer, so be it.

I have heard nothing but praise for DK from ALL stars, Gina, Kim, Robert, Ron and the rest. And you know ZImmer would chew him to bits if she thought he sucked.

He is not terrible, he is not great...he is like the rest of the writers in daytime right now....average.

None of that was her fault. She got the job during the writers' strike & when the strike ended, AW chose to stick with her. Frankly, as much as I like Lemay, they made the right call. I didn't care for much of his writing toward the end of his run and Donna revitalized the show.

I read in several places she stole ideas from his story bibles...

Actually, Donna did fill in during the writers' strike. Lemay had just returned to the show when the strike occurred. She *was* following his outlines and such because Lemay *was* to return to the show after the strike was over. However, she liked the job and P&G liked her and wanted to keep her on. I don't think Swajeski & Lemay gelled all that well and he ended up leaving the show. There are quite a few things that happened on the show during Swajeski's tenure that are reported to be taken from Lemay's longterm story projection, but it's very possible that many of those things had already been put into play with the intent that Lemay would return to complete the stories. For what it's worth, Swajeski was with the show for 4 years and left of her own accord (how many times in recent memory can you think of a head writer who left on their own?) and is one of the longest running HW in AW history (2nd to only Lemay himself, I believe).