Winner of the 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Debut Lesbian Fiction. "The Beautifully Worthless is an outrageous act of kindness."--Eileen Myles "She's insanely talented, it's mad. The Beautifully Worthless crisscrosses the USA, like Close to the Knives, like Kerouac, desperately seeking out everything occluded and driven, a frenzy of seeking frozen into poetry."--Kevin Killian "Ali Liebegott's books evoke a life-affirming sensation that comes from embracing the pendular. Her ability to hit the right tone is scientific, almost violent in its precision--a single word or observation, well-placed, can have a reader crying or laughing aloud."--Evan Karp, Bomb Magazine A runaway waitress leaves her lover, grabs her dog, and hits the highway. Ali Liebegott maps her travels in a series of hilarious and heartbreaking letters to the girl she left behind, and some of the most exquisite poetry written about love, heartache, and madness.

We'll release e-book version simultaneously and will promote it along with the paperback edition in the following ways: PRINT CAMPAIGN: We will pitch a combination of reviews/interviews/excerpts to SF Chronicle, SF Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, East Bay Express, Bay Area Reporter, 7x7, San Francisco Magazine, The Believer, Associated Press (LGBT reporter), Bay Citizen/NY Times Bay Area Advance copies to: Curve, Advocate, Out, Gay and Lesbian Review, Lambda Book Report, Passport Magazine, Lambda, Windy City Times (Chicago), Gay City News(NY), Bitch, Bust, Ms Magazine. We'll send to the trades: PW, Booklist, and Library Journal. BLOG, WEB, AND SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN: Rumpus, BOMB, Identity Theory, NYer's Book Bench, Bookslut,Shelf Awareness, Goodreads, Wikipedia. We'll promote it on City Lights' Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Tumblr, Pinterest, blog and web site, and on Wikipedia. Promotion through the author's website: http://www.aliliebegott.com RADIO CAMPAIGN: We'll pursue interviews at radio stations in the cities where Sister Spit travels, focusing on queer and women's programs. Shows to include: CA: KQED Forum & KQED California Report(San Francisco), KALW Your Call & KALW Out in the Bay (San Francisco), KPFA Cover to Cover (Berkeley), KPCC Airtalk (Los Angeles) ENDORSEMENTS: Will approach Justin Chin, Matthew Zapruder (poet, winner of the 2007 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society), Marie Howe, Claudia Rankine, Maggie Nelson, Rae Armantruot, Brenda Shaughnessy, Jen Benka, Anne Carson, Juliana Spahr, Ariana Reines

About the Author
Ali Liebegott is the author of the award-winning books The Beautifully Worthless and The IHOP Papers. In 2010 she took a train trip across America interviewing female poets for a project titled, The Heart Has Many Doors; excerpts from these interviews are posted monthly on The Believer Logger. Her novel Cha-Ching! is forthcoming from City Lights/Sister Spit. In addition, she is the founding editor at Writers Among Artists whose first publication, Faggot Dinosaur, was released in 2012.

Reviews
"The Beautifully Worthless is a genre-smudging, American Mythos-screwing hell of a book. Never falling into the twee or succumbing to the snarky, Liebegott's wit, astuteness and assured poetics come together to create this marvel of empathy & mercy, decency & heart; it affirms the possibility that hope is tenable and that living is worth the life itself. This is an atlas for every queerly vagabond soul, a pillow book for the hopelessly heartweary."--Justin Chin "Ali Liebegott's The Beautifully Worthless is a mixed-genre tour de force, a classic yet subverted road story, an original and fierce claim on this country, and the generator of an unusual, moving canon. It's saturated with Liebegott's signature gifts: a peerless sense of humor and a capacity to bear witness to and articulate the darkest corners of fear and despair. I stand in awe of Liebegott's talent and heart. She is one of the best we've got."--Maggie Nelson "Her witty, compassionate voice haunts me like no other."--Joan Larkin "Most comparisons to Jack Kerouac induce eye-rolls, but you figure that the Beatific City Lights wouldn't print such a thing unless they meant it. The Beautifully Worthless is a subverted road story about a runaway waitress who leaves her lover and hits the road with her dog. She maps her travels in letters to the girl she left behind and poetry about love and heartache."--SF Weekly "[Liebegott] writes with grace and empathy and with a whole 'lotta' heart."--Amos Lassen



Book Information
ISBN 9780872865716
Author Ali Liebegott
Format Paperback
Page Count 136
Imprint City Lights Books
Publisher City Lights Books
Weight(grams) 226g