Not Your Stuffy Garden-Variety Reading Series

Author Andre Dubus III / Photograph by Josh Campbell

Need something to do besides another rainy Red Sox game? Head to Enormous Room this Monday, May 23, for a special event ? equal parts social, cultural, and philanthropic ? organized by the Four Stories reading series.

A $25 donation gets you in the door, where you’ll hear readings by local literary heavyweights Andre Dubus III, Elyssa East, Elizabeth Searle, and Joan Wickersham, and eat up some of ER’s stellar food and cocktails (not included in admission price). In between, attendees can take part in the live auction; prizes include a “date” with an author and signed copies of books. One hundred percent of the proceeds from admission and the auction will go to the Ashinaga Foundation‘s fund to aid Japanese children orphaned in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

For Four Stories founder and former BU professor Tracy Slater, this is a cause that’s near and dear to her heart ? enough so that she traveled from her home in Japan to put on the event. She’s careful to emphasize that this is not your stuffy garden-variety reading series. “Boston has a really full mix of writers and nonwriters, not just a literary scene,” she explains. Keep that in mind when entering the evening’s “question contest”: Slater chooses her two favorite audience questions for each author participating, and the winners get a free drink. “I like to pick the dirtier, funnier ones, not ‘Do you write longhand or on the computer?’” she says. “This is a completely unpretentious literary event.”

Get there early if you want a seat; Slater predicts a full house, and if you’ve ever been to Enormous Room you know just what a misnomer that is.

$25, 7–9 p.m ., Enormous Room, 569 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-491-5550, fourstories.org.