The Harris Burdick Stories

Some forty or so years ago, children’s book editor Peter Wenders met Harris Burdick, an author and illustrator. Burdick, an unknown at the time, gave Wenders fourteen drawings with accompanying captions. Burdick left with the promise that he would return the next day with fourteen stories to go with the drawings, but never appeared. Wenders tried for awhile to find Harris Burdick, but was unsuccessful.

In 1984, Chris Van Allsburg (The Polar Express and Jumanji, among others) visited Wenders’ office. Wenders showed Van Allsburg Burdick’s manuscript, and Van Allsburg decided to publish the manuscript in hopes of finding Burdick once and for all. While Wenders and Van Allsburg were unsuccessful in finding Harris Burdick, their publication of Burdick’s drawings and captions have become fodder for creative writers all over the world, old and young alike. 

I was first introduced to The Mysteries of Harris Burdick when I was in elementary school. He seemed to follow me throughout my grade school career, first as a picture book that made my little mind run wild, then as fun prompts for creative writing assignments on Halloween. He reappeared in my life a few months ago when I read Stephen King’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes, which included one short story based on one of Burdick’s drawings. 

I always wanted to write a series to go with Burdick’s drawings, and now, being a Creative Writing MFA student, I finally feel like I have some business doing it! I set some rules for myself, just to make things interesting. They are:

• You get 10 sentences to tell the story. No more. No less.
• The pictures and stories must remain in the original order of publication. 
• The stories must riff on the drawing and the caption, but you cannot use the caption as one of your ten sentences. 
• Don’t mire yourself in one genre. Try all of them. 

Harris Burdick’s drawings are strange. Some are unsettling–you understand why Stephen King wanted to write about one of them–while others are perfectly whimsical, like a drawing out of fairy tale. I’ve enjoyed finally writing these stories. I hope you enjoy reading them, but more than that, I hope you feel compelled to create your own.

ARCHIE SMITH, BOY WONDER