PEN PAL: Orringer read from her work, then hit the phone. Stephanie Rausser

after finishing his campaign memoir, Looking Forward to It, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the American Electoral Process (Picador, October 2004), former Stegner fellow Stephen Elliott wanted to get involved with the 2004 election. “I was still feeling guilty for working on the Nader campaign in 2000,” Elliott says, “so I asked myself, ‘What can I do that nobody else can do?’”

The result was Operation: Ohio—named for the state seen as a key battleground—a get-out-the vote campaign that uses authors as bait. Accompanied by a New York Times reporter and heralded by public service announcements, Elliott and some writer friends, including former Stegner fellows Julie Orringer and Ryan Harty, gave readings at Ohio State University, Oberlin College and Cleveland State University in late September. Students could sign up at the readings or via the web to request a reminder to vote from one of the cadre of writers Elliott lined up for election day. Elliott later expanded the effort to include seven other swing states.

He said the writers hoped to make 5,000 calls on November 2. “It’s like a present when Tobias Wolff calls.”