Wendy, We Will Miss You

The New York Times is reporting that playwrite Wendy Wasserstein, has died of lymphoma.

As the article rightly points out, Wasserstein broke innovative literary and dramatic ground in her depictions of the lives of unmarried, introspective, urban women long before Sex in the City imbued our lives with its glossy, stylized sheen.

Wasserstein's characters are like the ones we are acquainted with in real life, complete with physical flaws, intellectual epiphanies, and cynicism masking self-doubt. I first discovered her in high school, and her stories served as my first exposure to the emotional landscapes of adult women, my first glimpse of how my personality was forming and who I would eventually become.

Never the flaxen-haired-urban-pixie-vixens popularlized by Candace Bushnell's ouvre, Wasserstein's women lived the way we actually do, rather than what we can aspire to be through makeovers and expensive threads.

For more on Wendy, check out Bachelor Girls (an essay collection) and the Heidi Chronicles (a play).