Robert Lawrence Stein (known as R. L. Stein or Bob Stein) is an American writer, producer, screenwriter, actor. Author of numerous horror books written specifically for teenagers. Winner of the Ohioana Book Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, as well as the nominee for the Russian horror masters award.
The creative biography of the author of numerous novels, which became bestsellers, began at a very young age. When Robert turned 7 years old, he found a typewriter in the attic of the house. Soon, he began to “publish” home-made comics and magazines, which he distributed to classmates.
Today, Stein is one of the most famous authors of thrillers for children. Many of his works were filmed and gained world fame.
He is a screenwriter and producer of numerous projects that have won the recognition and love of viewers around the world, including: "Room of Nightmares", "Bait", "Horror", "Horror 2".
Facts from the biography
Robert was born in America in the fall of 1943. He repeatedly said that all his ancestors lived in Russia and emigrated to the United States after the revolution.
The boy's father, Lewis Stein, worked as an ordinary employee in a grocery delivery company for cafes and restaurants. Mom - Anna Feinstein, was engaged in housekeeping and raising children, of whom there were three in the family.
At first, the Steins lived in the town of Bexley, where Robert spent his childhood. From an early age, the boy was very fond of fantasizing and composing terrible stories about ghosts and monsters. In the evenings, he would tell them to his loved ones, scaring brother and sister with fictional monsters, ghosts, vampires and werewolves. He was very fond of listening to radio plays staged based on the works of famous authors of science fiction. He also spent a lot of time reading books, magazines and comics, where the main characters were almost always fantastic creatures.
There was not enough money in the family and soon the parents decided to change their place of residence in order to pay less for the apartment. This happened shortly before Robert was supposed to go to school.
During the move, Bob found an old typewriter in the attic of the house, which he was extremely happy about. Now he could print his works and show them to friends and classmates. Stein's first magazines were mostly humorous. He also tried to draw the characters of his comics on his own, but soon realized that the artist would not work out of him.
At school, Bob became a real celebrity. His works were very popular with classmates, and teachers were not very happy with the content of his stories.
Stein was very fond of reading, at a very early age he literally knew by heart a lot of famous myths, tales, legends and fantastic works by famous and popular authors. Bob also loved cinema, preferring thrillers and horror films, and especially the Twilight Zone series.
After graduating from Bexley High School, Stein continued his studies at Ohio State University at the Faculty of Arts. In his student years, he was the editor of a youth publication and published his own works in it, taking the literary pseudonym Bob Veselchak.
After graduating from university and receiving a bachelor's degree, Stein got a job as a teacher of literature and history. A year later, he went to New York to begin a writing career.
Creative way
At first, Stein could not find a decent job for a very long time. He had to earn extra money in a printing house and write small notes in newspapers and magazines.
A few months later he was offered a place in a youth publication that published fictional interviews with representatives of show business. In the same period, several of his short stories in the horror genre appeared in one of the magazines.
Soon the magazine where he worked went bankrupt. Bob again had to look for a job, but he did not despair and believed that sooner or later the whole world would find out about his work.
The real success came to Stein only in the mid-1980s, when his wife gave her husband the idea of writing a series of horror films for children and adolescents. For several months, Bob wrote a story about a young man who was chased by the ghost of a dead girl. The book instantly became a bestseller and a year later the second and third parts of the work were published. After that, Stein began working on a series of novels for children called Street of Fear.
From that moment, Stein became one of the most popular authors of the horror genre for children and adolescents. He has written almost 500 works, some of which were filmed.
Russian readers are well aware of the writer's work. 175 Russian works of Stein were translated into Russian. He has been nominated twice for the Horror Masters Award.
Almost two dozen films were shot based on Stein's works, including the famous "Goosebumps", "Nightmare Room", "R. L. Stein: The Time of the Ghosts", "The Bait", "Horror", "Horror 2: Restless Halloween". In 2020, the release of the new project, Street of Fear, is expected, the script for which was written by Robert.
