Ali Liebegott
Ali Liebegott is a lesbian American author whose work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her first book, The Beautifully Worthless, won the Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction. Liebegott is a recipient of a Poetry Fellowship from the New York Foundation for Arts. She taught creative writing at UC San Diego and currently lives in San Francisco.Her debut novel entitled The IHOP Papers was published in early 2007 and was awarded a Lambda Literary award for Women's Fiction, a Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction, and was a finalist for a Stonewall Prize. She has toured the U.S. extensively with Sister Spit's Ramblin' Road Show and is represented by The Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.
“Who isn't interesting enough to help -- what forgotten woman sits in a lawn chair in her yard with a can of soda pressed to her thigh, and the radio blaring the death toll of Texans, who were victims of a record heat wave? Whose inner voice sits quiet like an obedient dog and never says, go go go.I want to go places I've never beenBecause I haven't failed there yet. So you can understand a little better,How a disgruntled waitress might pack her dogAnd a few belongings and head for a townShe dreamed of, searching for something to breakThe spell of monotonous, morbid night speak.”
Ali Liebegott
“do you or don't you know the two worlds I'm talking about,the world that doesn't existwhere you wish you could beon the dirt road that stretches out of Idahoaway from the cave and family?The girl you want lives there. All my life I've wanted to be the grand gesturethat forces the mouth open in disbelief Instead I was the lamp cord, collecting dust and never moving.It's easy to be the destroyed one.”
Ali Liebegott
“The daughter wants to turn the past on its back like a turtle or a roach, leaving those legs walking futilely through air cheering on those starved and paralyzed years. The mother put her makeup on, got ready for work, while cigarettes burned down, one by one in the chipped, red ashtray. The daughter stood beside the blaring alarm clock and shook the mother's sleeping body who worked sixteen hours a day and called the daughter and son from pay phones between jobs. When the mother found the daughter on the lawn of the mental hospital playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on her harmonica the mother couldn't believe it, because she was gone the years that led to it. When they finally came together, they came together as guilty mother and guilty daughter and found there was nothing there to trade.”
Ali Liebegott
“Lots of people hate gay people.You can tell who they are because they start sentences with, "It's not like I hate gay people.”
Ali Liebegott