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One night only – R.L. Stine at the AGO!

A portrait of RL Stine

Image courtesy of the artist.

A portrait of RL Stine
Image courtesy of the artist.

The man who haunted generations of book-loving kids and teens is coming to the AGO Wednesday night! R.L. Stine, author of Goosebumps and Fear Street, will be giving a talk on his creative process and his love of monsters and scary stories (something he shares with Guillermo del Toro) as part of our Inspiration is a Monster: Conversations with Legends of the Dark Arts series. It’s the perfect ending to an afternoon exploring our exhibition Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters.

If you’re a devoted fan of his books, TV shows and movies (the 2015 movie Goosebumps, based on the book series, featured Jack Black as Stine), then you might know a thing or two about R.L. Stine. Even so, here are a few tidbits that might take you by surprise:

  • R.L. stands for Robert Lawrence
  • Goosebumps has sold over 400 million copies so far, making it the best-selling children’s horror series
  • At one point in his career, R.L. Stine’s writing schedule had him writing a book a month
  • Stine says he never gets scared: “I don't know what the feeling is. Even as a kid. It's something lacking up there or something. People say, ‘Your book keeps giving me chills,’ but I don't know what that feeling is. Horror always makes me laugh. Normal adult things scare me, but not things from a book or a movie.”
  • Stine didn’t set out to become a horror writer: “I was a comedy guy and these books were so much more popular than my joke books.”
  • Three movies based on the Fear Street series are being developed by Fox
  • R.L. Stine has a Bleak House-like collection of horror items in his office, including a replica of Slappy the Dummy, another dummy modelled to look like Stine himself, and a three-foot-long toy cockroach that sits on top of his dog’s crate.

A series of "Goosebumps" book covers

R.L. Stine's sold out talk at the AGO is happening on Wednesday, November 29 at 7 pm.

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