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He writes over 24 novels a year. Stine’s thrillers contain age-appropriate chills. No one dies in Goosebumps and the novels are geared to grade-schoolers. But, for adolescents, heads roll in Fear Street. The Goosebumps horror series, published by Scholastic for 7-12 year olds, has consumed readers since 1989.

Washington Court House, Ohio, and Sabina, Ohio.

When we went on family vacations, my parents were always saying things like, “Would you guys stop reading for a minute and look out the window? That’s the Grand Canyon we’re driving past!”

But then my

For me, this phase lasted long enough that, by the time I sold my first two books (both at once, actually) our daughter, Meredith, was a year and a half old, and I was pregnant with our second child, Connor.

he remembered in his SAAS essay. Mazer served for two and a half years, starting out as an airplane mechanic, then training as a ball-turret and waist gunner.

"It's one thing to be

princess of a kingdom; it is quite another to be princess of an entire planet!"

Although she enjoyed writing Cabot never planned on becoming a professional author. Instead, she dreamed of being an actress or a veterinarian.

Seven years and thousands of rejection letters later (Cabot claims she has a mail bag full of rejections), her first novel was finally published. It was an historical romance called Where Roses Grow Wild (1998), and it was written under the pen name, or alias, of Patricia Cabot. Several more romances followed in 1999 and 2000. At the same time, Cabot was busy trying her hand at a novel, called The Princess Diaries, that was aimed at younger readers. Even though she was a published author, Cabot's young adult novel was rejected seventeen times before it was finally purchased by HarperCollins and released in 2000.

"The reason girls are drawn to the book is an element of naughtiness—ooh, I'm reading something that's not supposed to be read."

The Princess Diaries movies may not have been quite as successful if eighteen-year-old newcomer Anne Hathaway had not been chosen to play Mia Thermopolis, the nerdy American who is transformed into European royalty. In fact, even critics who panned the film consistently praised the fresh-faced, fledgling actress. As David DiCerto of the Catholic News Service wrote, "The mediocre material is elevated somewhat by the buoyant and beautiful Hathaway, whose sunny smile could light up a small kingdom of two."

McDaniel began writing about young adults when her son Sean was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 3. His illness changed the lives of everyone in her family forever. "I saw what life was like for someone who was chronically ill, and I experienced how it affected the dynamics of the family," says McDaniel. She says she found that writing about the trauma and its effects was therapeutic

In addition to her popular YA novels, McDaniel has written radio and television scripts, promotional and advertising copy, and a magazine column. She is a frequent speaker at schools, writers' conferences, and conventions.

Three of her novels were selected by children as IRA-CBC Children's Choices: SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, TOO YOUNG TO DIE, and GOODBYE DOESN'T MEAN FOREVER. SIX MONTHS TO LIVE has been placed in a literary time capsule at the Library of Congress, to be opened in the year 2089.

McDaniel's works include TO LIVE AGAIN, one of the Dawn Rochelle books; ANGEL OF MERCY, the companion to ANGEL OF HOPE; and HOW DO I LOVE THEE, three stories about young couples who are inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning's beautiful sonnet. In her novel, TELLING CHRISTINA GOODBYE, McDaniel shows that everything can change in the blink of an eye.

After just barely graduating from high school in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, in 1959, Paulsen attended Bemidji College in Minnesota, for two years, paying for his tuition with money he'd earned as a trapper for the state of Minnesota. When he flunked out of college, he joined the U.S. Army, serving from 1959 to 1962, and working with missiles. After his tour of duty was completed, he took extension courses to become a certified field engineer, finding work in the aerospace departments of the Bendix and Lockheed corporations. There it occurred to him that he might try and become a writer. "I'd finished reading a magazine article on flight-testing . . . and thought, gad, what a way to make a living—writing about something you like and getting paid for it!" he told F. Serdahely in Writer's Digest. "I remembered writing some of my past reports, some fictionalized versions I'd included. And I thought: 'What the hell, I am an engineering writer.' But, conversely, I also realized I didn't know a thing about writing professionally. After several hours of hard thinking, a way to learn came to me. All I had to do was go to work editing a magazine."

Creating a fictitious resume, Paulsen was able to obtain an associate editor position on a men's magazine in Hollywood, California. Although it soon became apparent to his employers that he had no editorial experience, he once told SATA that "they could see I was serious about wanting to learn, and they were willing to teach me." He spent nearly a year with the magazine, finding it "the best of all possible ways to learn about writing. It probably did more to improve my craft and ability than any other single event in my life." Still living in California, Paulsen also found work as a film extra (he once played a drunken Indian in a movie called Flap), and took up sculpting as a hobby, even winning first prize in a local exhibition.

Paulsen's first book, The Special War, was published in 1966, and he soon proved himself to be one of the most prolific authors in the United States. In little over a decade, working mainly out of northern Minnesota—where he returned after becoming disillusioned with Hollywood—he published nearly forty books and close to two hundred articles and stories for magazines. Among Paulsen's diverse titles were a number of children's nonfiction books about animals, a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., several humorous titles under the "Sports on the Light Side" series published by Raintree Press, two plays, adult fiction and nonfiction, as well as some initial ventures into juvenile fiction. On a bet with a friend, he once wrote eleven articles and short stories inside four days and sold all of them.H

Courtesy of HarperCollins

climbed up into his attic and found an old typewriter

nine years old

joke books

writing ever since

humor

editor

ten years

make kids laugh

do have a phobia that my nephews think is just insane - I cannot jump into water. I have to step into swimming pools. It's a real phobia, but my nephews think it's hilarious that this scary guy is so terrified of jumping into water."

magazin

Banana

rom the Ohio State University,

graduated f

small magazines

start writing novels

28 years old

Goosebumps

a TV Show.

The Nightmare Room

y Nickelodeon TV show,

1992 - R.L. Stine releases a new book series - Goosebumps. This series is aimed at younger kids, but still delivers some scary tales. The book series eventually spun off into

R.L. Stine comes up with the titles of his books first and then works from there, while most authors come up with the title last.

ries like

for more than

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with s

writing

Fear Street,