SOURCE: "Winner Take All," in Bachelor Girls, 1990. Reprint by Vintage Books, 1991, pp. 193-97.

In the essay below, Wasserstein discusses her reaction to winning the Pulitzer Prize for The Heidi Chronicles.

I dreamed I accepted the Tony Award wearing a CAMP EUGENE O'NEILL sweatshirt. It was an odd dream for two reasons. First, because my friend William Ivey Long, the costume designer, had made me a dress for the occasion; and, second, because until 1989 the only thing I'd ever won was a babka cake at a bakery on Whalley Avenue in New Haven.

My world view has always been from the vantage point of the slighted. I am the underachiever who convinces herself that it's a source of pride not to make the honor roll. Still, for the rest of my life I will remember the name of all those people who did. I am a walking Where Are...