They're calling it a "slumber party with writing," and that sounds like an appealing slumber party to me.
The second annual Northern Sparks celebration--an overnight festival of music, writing and the arts--will take place beginning at 9 p.m. on Saturday (June 9) at Open Book, going until 5:30 a.m. Sunday, when you can finally collapse into sleep.
Storytellers, poets and other spoken-word performers--sponsored by Paper Darts literary journal and the Loft Literary Center--will entertain you. (Including poet Heid Erdrich and novelist Peter Bognanni). Stacks of blank journals await your prose (or poetry) (or feverish nightmarish drawings) (or whatever you like). A classroom at Open Book will be converted into a viewing room, where you can watch an endless loop of films about dreams and the night.
The Paper Darts folks will also be making an issue of the magazine on the spot, over night, and looking for contributions from you--flash fiction, journals,observations, poems, photographs, whatever your sleep-deprived brains come up with.
It'll be fun.
