While writing for ABC's official soap magazine Episodes in 1989, Passalacqua Hayman was asked to be the critic for the new magazine Soap Opera Weekly. From its inception through 2001, she wrote critical analysis for Soap Opera Weekly under the pseudonym Marlena De Lacroix. Her column "Critical Condition" has been called "insightful, outspoken and humorous" and has been noted to have "created a sensation in the soap industry."
