A capacity crowd filled the Great Hall at Cooper Union on Tuesday for a reading to raise money for 826NYC, a nonprofit writing center in Brooklyn that offers after-school tutoring and writing workshops for students. The event featured readings from “Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules,” an anthology edited by David Sedaris (Simon & Schuster).

Sales of the book support the center, which is the Brooklyn counterpart to 826 Valencia, a writing center the folks at McSweeney’s magazine opened in the Bay Area. There is another writing center in Los Angeles, and others are planned in Ann Arbor and Seattle.

Sarah Vowell opened the program by saying the presenters had been offered the chance to have a modern podium or the one that Lincoln used when giving his famous speech at the Cooper Union in 1860. She said they chose the latter, and the audience roared when she struck a Lincoln-esque chord by adding: “I would like to take the opportunity to say I’m opposed to the expansion of slavery.”

Ms. Vowell talked briefly about 826NYC’s programs, such as a writer’s colony for young adults. She mentioned the writing center’s attractive storefront, known as the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, where children can try on superhero capes. A rush of air from an electric fan makes the capes flutter. Ms. Vowell held her arms straight out to demonstrate a superhero flying. Speaking of the secret passage to the writing center, she said it was a “gateway” to attract students’ interest: “That’s how we hook them.”

She next introduced Mr. Sedaris, the master of ceremonies for the evening. She used his preferred introduction: “Here is David Sedaris, who wrote some books.”

Mr. Sedaris praised the authors present, saying he was in awe of them. He cited an advantage of having collected many of his favorite stories in one place: “So if my apartment catches fire, I can take this one book.” He joked, “And I can use the other hand to push old people out of the way.” He also joked that he was not editor of the volume, in that he never said: “Lorrie Moore doesn’t need that sentence.”

Charles Baxter read from “Gryphon,” about a substitute teacher in rural Michigan named Ms. Ferenczi. In the story, her teaching skills come into question when she claims during an arithmetic lesson that six times 11 can also equal 68. She concludes, “When your teacher, Mr. Hibler, returns, six times eleven will be sixty-six again, you can rest assured. And it will be that for the rest of your lives in Five Oaks. Too bad, eh?”

On another day, Ms. Ferenczi begins talking as soon as the morning bell has rung, relating a stream of bizarre misinformation including that “unquenchable fires burn just under the surface of the earth in Ohio” and that Beethoven had not in fact been deaf: “It was a trick to make himself famous, and it worked.” Under the clouds of the planet Venus, she says, are angels: “They did not dress in robes as was often claimed but instead wore formal evening clothes, as if they were about to attend a concert.”

Akhil Sharma read from a story called “Cosmopolitan.” He opened with an anecdote, saying that the last time he appeared before such a large audience he read with a writer who unfortunately had the same name as a famous film director. When the audience was informed that the film director was not present, they cleared out, leaving about “12 people in the room.” He shrugged, explaining this was “the life of the writer.”

Joyce Carol Oates read from her story “The Girl With the Blackened Eye,” about a 15-year-old girl abducted from a mall parking lot. Ms. Oates teaches at Princeton University, and in the audience were fellow faculty from the program in creative writing, Edmund White and Gabe Hudson.

Ms. Moore read Richard Yates’s story “Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired,” about a woman sculptor in Greenwich Village who gets the opportunity to make a model of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s head from real life.

Before a final surprise reader came on, the house lights went up and Mr. Sedaris and Ms. Vowell made a pitch for more donations. It is true Peter Cooper founded the Cooper Union on the notion that education should be free; 826NYC’s programs for students are also free. But as anyone who runs nonprofits knows, there are electricity bills and the like to be paid. This fundraiser cost the audience $20 for admission, and now would cost some a little more, as the audience was told that “attractive young persons” would soon walk the aisles passing silver pails.

Mr. Sedaris began by donating $500 in cash. He said he could have written a check and gotten a tax deduction “but I’m so rich I don’t need to.” A little later, he said sotto voce to audience laughter, “Damn, five hundred dollars.”

Then the final reader, actor Steve Buscemi, captivated the audience with Tobias Wolff’s violent story “Bullet in the Brain,” about a man named Anders who is among those trapped in a bank during a robbery. At one point, with a pistol stuck under his chin by one of the holdup men, Anders gets the opportunity to take in the artwork on the ceiling: “Now he had no choice but to scrutinize the artist’s work. It was even worse than he remembered, and all of it executed with the utmost gravity. The artist had a few tricks up his sleeve and used them again and again – a certain rosy blush on the underside of the clouds, a coy backward glance on the faces of the cupids and the fauns.” The story soon takes a dark turn.

After the readings, attendees came onstage to get books signed by the authors. Earlier, Mr. Sedaris had encouraged the audience to do so, saying it was a “great chance to get up close to people.”