R.L. Stine, the Ohio-born author behind Goosebumps, drew a sellout crowd to Cincinnati's Downtown Main Library earlier this month, with horror fans young and old. Tickets for the October 15 talk sold out after going on sale in September, and the demand speaks to just how far the reach of Stine's scary stories has traveled since he started writing them decades ago in central Ohio.
The event was funded through the Eva Jane Romaine Coombe Fund via The Library Foundation, according to the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library, which organized the live talk and a book signing for select ticket holders. As reported by Axios, Stine entertained the packed crowd with stories from his career, including a memory of a Baltimore teacher who asked him for a photo because her children thought he was dead. He also read Shel Silverstein's poem “Haunted” and named “The Haunted Mask” as his favorite Goosebumps story, Axios reported.
A Homecoming Rooted in Ohio Childhood Memories
Stine told the crowd he was a poor kid in Columbus, Ohio, growing up, and his path to horror writing started close to home. He discovered Tales from the Crypt comics at his hometown barbershop in Columbus and read Ray Bradbury at a nearby library, according to the same Axios account. Those early influences trace back even further: Britannica says Stine was born in Columbus on October 8, 1943; Ohio State identifies him as a Bexley native and says he was nine when he began using a typewriter.
Stine also spent part of his childhood visiting his grandparents in Cincinnati, developing an appreciation for the city's hills along the way, Axios reported. Not every memory was fond — he recalled experiencing heartburn at age six after eating a meal cooked in chicken fat at his grandmother's home, per the same account. He also recalled those childhood trips while speaking to the Cincinnati crowd.
The Beast Roller Coaster Inspired Two Novels
Stine wrote two books inspired by The Beast, the wooden roller coaster at Kings Island in Mason, and said he rode it twice, calling it one of the great wooden roller coasters, according to Axios. His 1994 novel “The Beast” follows two cousins who sneak onto a haunted roller coaster after dark and travel back in time, according to Simon & Schuster, and he followed it with a sequel, “The Beast 2,” in 1995.
The coaster that inspired those books still holds the Guinness World Record as the world's longest wooden roller coaster, stretching 7,361 feet across 35 acres after a two-foot track lengthening in 2022, according to Kings Island. The coaster originally opened in 1979 and features a double helix tunnel with a four-minute ride time.
Ohio Roots Before a Global Publishing Empire
Before Goosebumps made him a household name, Stine graduated from The Ohio State University in 1965 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, spending three of his college years as editor-in-chief of the campus humor magazine The Sundial under the pen name “Jovial Bob Stine,” according to Britannica. He later returned to Ohio State in December 2013 to serve as the university's autumn commencement speaker, per The Ohio State University.
Stine's career took off in 1989 with the teenage horror series Fear Street, which has sold more than 80 million copies worldwide, Britannica reports. That success paved the way for Goosebumps, which launched in July 1992 with “Welcome to Dead House” and has since sold more than 400 million copies in over 30 languages, ranking as the second-bestselling children's book series in history behind Harry Potter, according to Britannica. The original run published 62 books between 1992 and 1997.
The franchise has only grown since then. A live-action television reboot debuted on Disney+ and Hulu in October 2023, followed by a second season titled Goosebumps: The Vanishing in January 2025 starring David Schwimmer, according to a Disney+ press release distributed by Scholastic.
For the hometown crowd that packed Cincinnati's Downtown Main Library this month, the decades-long arc of Stine's career was on full display — a writer who turned childhood trips to local barbershops, libraries and amusement parks into a publishing empire that still, by Axios's account, brings him joy and reconnects adult fans with their own childhoods.
