For the last few months San Francisco's Makeout Room has been host to a series of literary readings, organized by author Stephen Elliott political fundraisers for progressive political candidates. The series has gone so well that Elliott and his cohorts recently launched a political action committee called LitPAC, which earned them some attention from the Associated Press. Now they're bringing the show to New York, with a reading tonight at Galapagos in Williamsburg where the funds have been earmarked for "The Fighting Dems," a loose group of Democrats with military backgrounds running for Congress against GOP incumbents this November. The lineup features Anthony Swofford, Adrienne Miller, David Rees, Jonathan Ames, Paul LaFarge, and Janice Erlbaum.

The photos accompanying this item were taken by Jason Schutz at a Progressive Reading Series event held last February. The readers Elliott (inset) assembled for that evening's entertainment included (clockwise from the top left corner) Ames, Curtis Sittenfeld, Adam Johnson, and Tobias Wolff.