Partially because I was inspired by Gina Frangello’s post about Literary Communities and partially because I thought I should start writing about them for the site, I have decided to make a serious effort to attend more readings. With that in mind, I headed over to No Exit Cafe on Tuesday night to attend the LitPAC Progressive Reading Series.

I got there a just before the event was scheduled to start and there were just a few people there, including author Stephen Elliott, who would be the host for the evening and is the founder and Executive Director of LitPAC. For those who don’t know about this organization I strongly urge you to go to the website and check it out. Basically, LitPAC is a political action committee that raises money for progressive candidates through literary events.

Tonight’s reading was to raise funds for Tammy Duckworth who is running for Congress in Illinois 6th District. Ms. Duckworth is a veteran of the Iraq War where she was severely injured while co-piloting a Black Hawk helicopter. For more on Tammy please visit her website.

When the room had filled with about 20 or 30 people, Stephen stepped up onstage and made a few introductory remarks about Tammy and about the 2006 election in general. LitPAC is focusing on the Congressional races in order to “win back the congress,” as Stephen put it. He explained that in the many races around the country where Democrats are facing Republican incumbents with big war chests, even the seemingly small amount LitPAC is able to donate can make a huge difference to their campaigns.

The reading kicked off with two poets, first Dan Beachy-Quick who teaches at the Art Institute of Chicago and then Simone Muench who is poetry editor at Another Chicago Magazine. After Stephen read some excerpts from Looking Forward to It, his book about the 2004 election, he introduced Peter Orner who read from his novel The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo. Instead of reading from her bestselling novel, Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger read an unpublished and quite humorous essay about the exhumation and burial of her pet cats. The last author to read, Alexander Hemon, also chose to read from an unpublished work-in-progress instead of his novel Nowhere Man.

In his closing remarks Stephen thanked everybody for coming and reminded us that there was a table filled with books donated by the authors and that for an additional donation (besides the admission charge) we could take one. Inspired by the cause and the great reading, I decided to empty my wallet and I was fortunate to end up with Niffenegger’s beautifully-crafted novel-in-pictures, The Three Inscestuous Sisters. (I walked off feeling like I had not given enough for such a nice book so when I got home I went to the LitPAC site and donated another $20.)

Before Peter Orner read, he praised Stephen for all the work he had done with LitPAC and for “putting his money where his mouth is.” That about sums it up. LitPAC is a very cool organization and I encourage all of you to visit their site and donate ridiculously generous amounts of money immediately.