After six years together, ABC and Vanessa Williams are making it official. The broadcast network has signed the actress, who has appeared on the network's hit shows Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty for six consecutive seasons, to a broad strokes "talent holding deal." Under the deal, Williams will develop and possibly star in a new half-hour or hour-long project targeted for next fall, Deadline.com reports.

Williams, whose next project will be a cameo in Tyler Perry's The Marriage Counselor, is also writing her first book, a memoir with her mother, Helen Williams, to be released around Mother's Day.

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