An intelligent way to celebrate a weekday Halloween? Telling classic scary tales around a bonfire with spooky treats galore.

English honors society Sigma Tau Delta hosted its second annual Poe and Co. event at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the East Lagoon in celebration of the holiday.

The event was set to last until 11 p.m. or whenever everyone decided to disperse, and it was a way for the organization to have a fall event along with its main spring event, Lost in Translation, said Bridget Crase, senior English major and Sigma Tau Delta treasurer.

“It’s to really mark Halloween, mark literature, and to mark halfway through the semester,” Crase said.

Kristina Kroger, junior English major and Sigma Tau Delta historian, described the event as something that is a little more high-brow and intelligent to do on Halloween.

“We do things like this where nerds like us have a communal place to get together and share a love for all things literary,” Kroger said.

The works that were featured included stories by H.P. Lovecraft, Lewis Carroll and, of course, Edgar Allan Poe. It also included poetry and gory comic books, and in years past works like V for Vendetta by Alan Moore were included.

In the spirit of the Halloween-themed event, Jeffrey Jett, senior English major and Sigma Tau Delta president, read Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, and he even had a self-beating heart to hold as he read the story.

“We could get people to come and have a good time,” Jett said. “Enjoy poetry for poetry’s sake.”

Along with Poe and Co., other events Sigma Tau Delta hosts include Lost in Translation, where professors and students from different departments choose a foreign literary work to read in its native language and in English, and, more recently, a Twilight Roast Night, where the movie Twilight is played with an alternative and humorous dub track.

More information about Sigma Tau Delta can be found at www.niu.edu/sigmatd/index.shtml.