R. L. Stine has been giving young readers the chills for decades through his iconic “Goosebumps” and “Fear Street” series. Now, Stine will be sharing his best scares with the Indianapolis community on March 19 at the 2026 Marian McFadden Memorial Lecture with Mychal Threets of “Reading Rainbow” at the Madam Walker Legacy Theater.
Like many writers, Stine’s path into horror was shaped by early influences that sparked his imagination. Ray Bradbury was the one author to get him outside of the comic book world – a connection that later led to Stine being invited to visit the Ray Bradbury Center on IU Indianapolis’ campus during his upcoming Indianapolis visit.
“My mom dropped me off at the little library on Main Street [in Columbus, Ohio],” said Stine in an interview with The Campus Citizen. “This librarian was waiting for me. And she said, ‘Bobby, I know you like comic books. I have something else to show you.’ She took me to the shelf of Ray Bradbury's stories, and they were so amazing. That got me reading all kinds of science fiction and fantasy books.”
As his reading expanded, so did the list of storytellers who inspired his work.
“You know, when you write, there are a lot of people who are influential on you,” he said. “I think I've stolen every Agatha Christie plot. And Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone, that was also a very big influence, very important to me.”
Stine is especially aware of how his core readers engage with books at different ages, where his stories primarily target seven to 11-year-olds.
“[Seven- to 11-year-olds] want to know you, they want to read, they want to buy stuff – they're a wonderful audience,” said Stine. “Then when they turn 12, they have to be cool. And they're lost forever. They have to be cool the rest of their lives, and they don't care about authors at all.”
But behind the scares is a writer who carefully crafts his stories, and sometimes even removes modern technology to make them work.
“I spent a lot of time getting the phones out of there,” said Stine. “Usually near the beginning of the book, so I can have a real story. Someone collects them all, they all run out of power – something so that kids can't use their phones.”
Stine’s ability to tap into childhood fears may come from his own experiences growing up where he notes one memorable fear that shaped the second “Goosebumps” book, “Stay Out of the Basement.”
“My dad would say, ‘Go down and bring up a roast or something,’” said Stine. “And I'd have to go down, and it'd be this freezer that was shaped like a casket. It's like coffin-shaped, and I'd have to open the lid, and I always knew there'd be a body lying there. Some frozen body.”
Even with those real fears as inspiration, Stine says there’s a key rule he follows when writing horror for young readers.
“My rule for ‘Goosebumps’ is that the kids have to know that it's a fantasy,” he said. “The reader has to know this could never happen. It's just a made-up story. And if I establish that, then I can get pretty scary. I can go pretty far with the scares.”
While he’s written for a young adult audience as well, Stine states that he just loves to write – especially for the twist.
“There's a line in the ‘Goosebumps’ movie that I wish I had written,” said Stine. “Jack Black, at the end of the movie, is a teacher, and he tells the kids, ‘Every story has a beginning, a middle and a twist.’ That's just perfect. That's just what I try to do.”
Interestingly, Stine never originally set out to become a horror writer at all. He started his writing career by creating joke books and humor magazines. It wasn’t until an editorial director at Scholastic needed someone to write a teen horror novel This is where R.L. Stine, who never said no, picked up the task.
“So I went running to the bookstore to see what Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike were writing,” said Stine. “I wrote ‘Blind Date.’ It came out – it was a number one bestseller. Then I wrote ‘Twisted,’ another No. 1 bestseller. And I thought, ‘Forget the funny stuff. I've been scary ever since.’”
From childhood fears to unexpected career turns, Stine proves that sometimes the best stories – and the scariest ones – come from the most unlikely beginnings.
Melanie Contreras is a sophomore majoring in journalism with a minor in English and history while also working on a paralegal studies certificate. She is the culture and politics editor for The Campus Citizen. She enjoys drinking coffee and being a social advocate for the community.
Part two: The 98th Academy Awards predictions – The dark horses, the snubbed nominees and the winners
By Emiliano Magana | March 14The Academy Awards will take place on March 15, 2026. With the list of nominees being released and Oscar voting being finished, it has left cinephiles with the doubt of who will be the winners in certain categories. Besides the doubt, questions have been raised about the categories, such as: will Paul Thomas Anderson finally get his long-awaited Oscar? Could “Sinners” break another record after beating “All About Eve” (1950), “Titanic” (1997) and “La La Land” (2016) in the most nominations received by a film in an edition of the Academy Awards? Who will win the newly introduced category of “Casting” in this Oscar’s Edition? With that being said, I have decided to share who I think are the dark horses, who got snubbed of nominations and who will be the winners of some of the major production categories in this Oscars edition.
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Part one: The 98th Academy Awards predictions – The dark horses, the snubbed nominees and the winners
By Emiliano Magana | March 11With the Academy Awards taking place on March 15, 2026, the acting categories seem to be close to shaping the way for a winner after a competitive award season, in which the Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress had different winners at the Golden Globes, British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards. However, for Best Actress, Jessie Buckley seems to have secured herself her maiden Oscar win after a major sweep in the award season. The unsettled Oscar races have raised questions such as: Will Timothée Chalamet finally get his long-desired Oscar? Will Amy Madigan bring the golden statuette back to the horror genre? Will Sean Penn win his third Oscar? With that being said, I present who I believe are the dark horses, the snubbed nominations and the winners at this Oscars edition.
