Popular young adult writer R.L. Stine returns to the publishing scene this year, following an eight-year hiatus in which Stine experimented with other types of writing. His hugely successful “Goosebumps” series thrust Stine into the limelight ten years ago, when readers, mostly ages 8-12, devoured the extensive series, prompting USA Today to name Stine as the best-selling author in America for three consecutive years. Scholastic, Stine’s publisher, was at one point selling four million copies a month.

Stine achieved his first success targeting a slightly older audience with his teenage horror series called “Fear Street,” in which many storylines involved the untimely demise of Fear Street High School students. When Parachute Press approached him about writing a series aimed at a younger demographic, Stine says he was “having a good time killing off teenagers.”

Stephen King, in an article for Entertainment Weekly, suggests that Stine’s success has a large part in promoting J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, writing, “He’s (Stine) largely unknown and uncredited…But of course, John the Baptist never got the same press as Jesus, either.”

Even without new titles, the Goosebumps series continues to sell approximately two million copies a year, according to Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic Media. Despite its success in the past, Stine is realistic about the odds of regaining that level of popularity. “Maybe it’ll be hard to do a second time,” he said. “Maybe it’ll happen again. Right now I don’t know.”