Linda Ramsey was named first winner of the Wasserstein Prize, an honor for emerging writers established in memory of playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who died last year. Ramsey, who has had plays produced at the University of Texas at Austin, was recognized for her script, This Feather House. The prize includes a $15,000 cash award, funded by the Educational Foundation of America, where Wasserstein was a member of the board.
In This Feather House (alternatively called Momma, Crazy!), an aura counselor’s daughter struggles to succeed as an assistant at a cheese factory, but her mother believes that finding a man would bring her more happiness than the life of an executive woman ever could. Nobody can say she still doesn’t do everything she can to ensure her daughter’s success: blessing her hair extensions with holy salt, shopping for men online, and performing express exorcisms on their old car when they can’t get it to start. But when is a mother’s love too much? Or too crazy?
Linda is a senior English major at UT and previously attended the University of Puget Sound before wandering down south. Her play, Ink, was produced by the Broccoli Project at UT last March and her essays and poetry have been published in the Aurora Review and The Strange Fruit, a literary magazine based out of Seattle.