Celebrating author R.L. Stine and ‘Goosebumps’

At the beginning of October we’re all thinking that Halloween  will be right around the corner. For most of us young readers October is significant as the month of children’s horror author R.L. Stine’s birthday. 

Robert Lawrence Stine, better known as R.L. Stine, born Oct. 8, 1943, is a best-selling author of more than 300 books including his most popular series, “Goosebumps”. He began writing when he was nine years old after finding a typewriter in the attic, and he’s been writing ever since. His writing career started with little joke books, when he was known as ‘Jovial Bob Stine’. It carried on to short stories and comic books, and then got scary in 1986 with his first novel, “Blind Date”, where he decided to use his initials, R.L., to better complement the seriousness of the novel.

 In 1989 he began the “Fear Street” series before getting into “Goosebumps”. The series began in 1992 and has grown to include over 130 titles, including four published this year. Stine’s personal favorite from his monumental series is “The Haunted Mask”. 

When asked why he writes creepy books, he replies that he “just likes to scare people!” and added that when he and his brother went to see scary movies, they were never scared: they just laughed! 

Stine is almost fearless, his only fear is jumping into water, he steps into swimming pools. The spooky author says that when he writes, contrary to most, he begins with a title. He finds a really good book title and that’s what leads him to the story. His writing studio in his apartment in NYC has a mask, a skeleton, and a three-foot-long cockroach to create an eerie atmosphere. He also claims to  never get writer’s block, and 27 years later, he is still working on the Goosebumps series, and there is no foreseeable finale.