Burdick just got revisited via The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, a new hardcover in which "14 amazing authors tell the tales," featuring a pretty all-star line-up of contributors: Van Allsburg, Lois Lowry, Louis Sachar, Sherman Alexie, Cory Doctorow, and yes, Stephen King. (And there's a great intro by Lemony Snicket, too.) Chronicles contains Van Allsburg's original (and still-fantastic) drawings, but each contributor tackles one of the images and tells a story around it. After spending some time last night reading the first few stories, I'm impressed: "Weird" and "sweet" and "creepy" and "funny" are all adjectives that spring to mind, and I'm not even halfway through yet.
Van Allsburg's appearing tonight at 7 pm at Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing (3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd). I'd be there to get my copy of Chronicles signed, but I'll be busy cranking out some more words to hit my 1,600-words-per-day quota for National Novel Writing Month. And even though I won't be writing those words with a cheap Bic pen on ruled notebook paper, Van Allsburg undoubtedly bears some of the blame for whatever it is that I'll come up with.