San Francisco author Stephen Elliott, whose anthology Sex for America: Politically Inspired Erotica will be released early next year, has been out and about. Earlier this month he appeared at Eastern Michigan University to talk about fiction and politics, and last week he joined Mattilda Bernstein, Jennifer Blowdrier and others to read from the new issue of Instant City. Today he popped up in the New York Times Book Review’s blog offering a playlist of favorite tunes.

In addition to his writing, Elliott also founded LitPac to raise money for progressive candidates through readings and literary events. Their next event in San Francisco is January 19.

(Disclosure: I appeared in a reading last year to help launch Elliott’s book My Girlfriend Comes To the City And Beats Me Up. Also, Elliott and I are the only San Francisco authors to have professional football-playing namesakes in the U.K.: footballer Stephen Elliott plays in the Barclays Premier League, whatever that is, and footballer Mark Pritchard plays in the Welsh Premier League.)