Quiara Alegría Hudes is probably still celebrating her professional success by the spoonful…

The half-Puerto Rican playwright and author has won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for drama with her play Water by the Spoonful, according to Columbia University.

Hudes, best known for writing the book for the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights, was awarded $10,000 for the play that reflects the return to civilian life of an Iraq War veteran.

The jury of the 96th annual Pulitzer Prizes wished to honor Hudes’ “imaginative playwhich is set in her native Philadelphia.

Water by the Spoonful was produced last fall at the Stage Company in Hartford, Connecticut.

Hudes, who earned a bachelor’s degree  in music from Yale University and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Brown University, was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer with Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue. She’s also the creator of other musicals like Barrio Grrrl!, which premiered in 2009 at Washington’s Kennedy Center.

At the age of 12, Hudes’ first play was produced by the Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival and she still returns home to lead workshops for young scribes.