Beloved ‘Goosebumps’ author set to speak at True Lit on Thursday

R.L. Stine has been haunting children for decades, ever since the release of his “Fear Street” series for young teens in 1989 and later the first “Goosebumps” novel, “Welcome to Dead House,” in 1992. More than 200 “Goosebumps” books have been published and in its 30 years, the series has sold more than 400 million books. But the author is not slowing down. In fact, he says it’s his busiest autumn yet.

“Zombie Town,” his latest movie, was released on Hulu on Oct. 6; he’s got four books coming out, including one that imparts writing tips for adults and a recently released horror comic book for adults, “Stuff of Nightmares.”

I spoke with the award-winning author by Zoom last week.

You can hear Stine speak in person this week as a part of the True Lit Festival. An Evening With R.L. Stine will take place starting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the event center at the Fayetteville Public Library. Stine said he plans to tell a ghost story he made up; read some kind of scary story; read some of his letters from kids — and the rest he’ll figure out.

Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, I know you have a lot on your plate as always.

I’m outlining a comic book actually. I’m doing comic books! I love it; having a great time with it, doing horror comic books for adults. One just came out, it’s called “Stuff of Nightmares,” and then there’s a really ghastly Christmas one coming out called “Slay Ride.”

Is it your first for adults?

First comic book for adults. I’ve written four novels for adults, but no one noticed.

You also have more books coming out at the same time, is that right?

I’ve never had a fall like this; I don’t get it. I should be by the pool or something. Four books come out this fall. It’s insane, who would do that? This is crazy.

When I was a kid, there were these great horror comics called “Tales from the Crypt” and “The Vault of Horror,” and they were just ghastly. I just loved them. They were bloody. They all had wonderful art and funny twist endings, so you see they were a very big influence on me because I do the same kind of thing with twist endings.

People always ask me, “What books did you like when you were a kid?” I didn’t read books. I only read comic books. It’s kind of nice, sort of a full circle.

I heard that you told your brother scary tales growing up. Did you use the comic books then to develop those?

Yes, and from scary radio shows and scary TV shows. I was always into horror. When my brother and I were kids, the local movie theater in Columbus, Ohio, every Saturday morning would have a festival of Tom and Jerry cartoons and then they would show a horror movie.

So I got to see all these great horror movies, “The Brain that Wouldn’t Die” and “The Creature From the Black Lagoon” and “It Walks Among Us” and all the films — and I always loved horror. I never planned to write it, I was never interested in writing scary stuff, but I always enjoyed it.

Did your mom encourage you not to watch those horror films?

She never encouraged me to do anything, but she absolutely didn’t understand why I was in my room typing all the time.

I started writing when I was 9 years old. I’d be in my room typing stories and little joke magazines. She would stand outside my door and say, “What’s wrong with you? Stop typing! What’s wrong with you? Go outside and play!” I’d say, “It’s too boring out there.”

So you found a typewriter…

I thought it was so interesting. Why did I like it so much? I don’t know.

I was a very shy kid. Very fearful of a lot of things. Maybe that’s why I liked staying in my room and just writing all the time.

What were you afraid of ?

All kinds of things. I would ride my bike around the neighborhood in the evening, and it would be dark by the time I got back, and I always thought something was waiting for me in the garage. I always thought something was lurking (there).

And I would take my bike and heave it into the garage and run into the house.

It’s a terrible way to be a kid. That wasn’t a way to grow up. But later on, it came in handy. When I started writing the scary stuff, I could remember that feeling of panic. I could remember what it felt like. I could bring it to my stories.

How did you study writing in college?

I was an English major, worthless major. We’re all English majors here, my son (included). When I was in college at Ohio State, every single college had a humor magazine. That’s all I wanted to do. I was editor of the humor magazine (The Sundial) three years in a row. That’s basically all I did in college. I wrote this, did this magazine and hardly ever went to class. How to do a magazine and how to work with a staff and write really quickly. It was great.

The plan was that you were going to be a humor writer?

Yeah, I was going to write funny novels for adults, which of course

nobody wants. I moved to New York as soon as I graduated school because I thought if you wanted to be a writer, you had to be in New York. In those days there wasn’t a choice. You couldn’t email your manuscript in to somebody. I started getting publishing jobs and got into publishing and that’s sort of how I got started.

What did you learn in those early years?

My first job in New York was making up interviews with the stars.

This woman had six movie magazines that came out every month, and she had to fill them up. We would come in in the morning and she would say, “Do an interview with Diana Ross.” “Do an interview with the Beatles” “Do an interview with Jane Fonda,” these people back then. I would sit down and write an interview.

We never really interviewed them. We just made them up.

I would write two or three interviews with stars a day. It was great training. One, you had to be very imaginative, it was very creative and you had to learn to write really fast, you had to be efficient.

Then I answered an ad and became an editor at Scholastic, writing social studies and geography, stuff like that. That’s my first writing for kids.

The connection was that they asked you to write a horror book, is that right?

Yeah, what happened was …

I was having lunch with this woman who was the editorial director at Scholastic and a friend of mine. She came to lunch, she had just had a fight with an author that wrote teen horror, and she said, “I’m never working with him again. You could do it, you could write a good teen horror novel, go home and write a book called ‘Blind Date.’”

She even gave me the title. It was all her idea. I didn’t know what she was talking about! What’s a teen horror novel?

I had to run to the bookstore and buy up Christopher Pike and Lois Duncan and all these people who were writing teen horror to find out what it was about. Then I wrote “Blind Date,” it came out, and it was a No. 1 bestseller. I thought, “Wait a minute, forget the funny stuff.” I’ve been scary ever since.

How do you balance scary but not too scary?

What I do in “Goosebumps” books is I make sure the kids know that it could never happen. I make sure kids know it’s a fantasy. And if I establish that, I can go pretty far with the scares.

When did you realize [your writing] was connecting with people?

Here’s when I realized my life was getting weird, OK? When “Goosebumps” was taking off, I was in my hometown, I was doing a book signing at a bookstore … I was in the car, stuck in a traffic jam. I was really worried people would be waiting for me at the store. I look around at all the cars, and they’re all filled with kids. I had caused the traffic jam. That’s when I knew.

What’s one of your favorite characters you’ve created over the years?

I have this Slappy the evil dummy, which is exciting for me because this Halloween; thousands of kids go out as Slappy the Dummy. It’s a very amazing thing to me.

I gave a talk at a theater in Toronto a few Halloweens ago, and 40 people came dressed as Slappy. I looked at them and thought, “Gee, I should be in the red bow tie business.”

He has to be my favorite character. I think largely from the two Goosebumps movies, with Jack Black playing me. He’s also my least favorite character because I’ve had to write 15 books about him.

I’m curious about your TV and movie adaptations. You’ve said that you felt lucky that it happened within 20 years of the books coming out?

(laughs) It took 23 years to get the “Goosebumps” movie out. I’ve been so lucky because the two “Goosebumps” movies with Jack Black, they were good. I had very little input. Nobody wants the author around when they’re doing TV or a movie. I’m very proud of them. I didn’t have much to do with this new “Goosebumps” TV series that started this week on Hulu and Disney+. It’s fun and I didn’t have to do the work!

Is there anything you haven’t been able to do in your career yet that you want to?

No, I’ve done everything. I’m beyond my wildest dreams. I never thought I would do all this stuff — TV, movies and comic books … no, I don’t have anything else. I’d like to continue on.

(Courtesy Photo) R.L. Stine plans to read some of the letters he gets from kids when he speaks Thursday. Two of his most quotable said, “Dear R.L. Stine, you are my second favorite author” and “Dear R.L. Stine, I’ve read 40 of your books and I think they’re really boring.” “It’s the perfect letter,” he said of the second one. “Maybe he thinks number 41 will be good.”

(Courtesy Image) Stine says his first “Goosebumps” book, “Welcome to Dead House,” “is too scary for the series. I hadn’t quite figured it out. It doesn’t have the humor and the teasing. … It took me a while.” “The Haunted School” is the 59th “Goosebumps” novel.