Among Jean Feiwel's publishing milestones during her 22-year tenure at Scholastic were two phenomenally successful middle-grade paperback series, the Baby-sitters Club by Ann M. Martin, and R.L. Stine's Goosebumps. Between 1986 and 2000, the publisher released 213 Baby-sitters Club novels, which sold more than 176 million copies. Debuting in the early '90s, Stine's original Goosebumps series included 87 titles and sold more than 250 million copies in the U.S. alone.
Now senior v-p and publisher of Macmillan's Children's Publishing Group, where she launched the Feiwel and Friends imprint in 2007, Feiwel has reunited with both Martin and Stine. Her imprint is publishing a stand-alone novel by each: Stine's It's the First Day of School... Forever! is due in July, and Martin's Ten Rules for Living with My Sister is a September release. Both authors will sign ARCs of their novels today. Stine is autographing at Table 15, 2:30–3:30 p.m., and Martin is signing at the Macmillan booth (3352), 3–3:30 p.m.
The editor's early connections to Martin and Stine date back to the early 1980s, when the three overlapped, if briefly, as editors at Scholastic. After Martin left the company to write, Feiwel called her with the idea for a series, sparked by the success of a babysitting-themed novel offered by Scholastic's Arrow Book Club. "It was really just a glimmer of an idea—a series about a babysitters' club," recalls Feiwel. "Ann came up with everything else."
Though Goosebumps was Stine's brainchild, Feiwel had earlier helped launch the author on his now well-trod path of horror writing. After Stine left Scholastic, Feiwel suggested he write a scary book for teens. "I had written humor and thought I was a funny guy, not a scary one," recalls Stine. "But Jean gave me the title—Blind Date—and I wrote the novel for her, and it reached the #1 spot on PW's bestseller list. I realized that we'd discovered something kids really like—they like to be scared."
Stine went on to write Fear Street, a horror series for teens, for Simon & Schuster, and his wife, veteran publishing professional Jane Stine, suggested he pen a scary series for middle-graders. The author came up with the name Goosebumps—which, he notes, "is scary and funny at the same time"—and sold the series to Feiwel at Scholastic.
Feiwel first welcomed Martin to the Feiwel and Friends list in 2009, when she published Everything for a Dog. The author's new middle-grade novel, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, centers on two very different sisters who must share a room after their grandfather moves into their Manhattan apartment.
Stine, who remarks, "Jean and I have been friends all along, and it's great to be back working with her," was happy to run with the idea that Stine's stand-alone novel. was inspired by the film Groundhog's Day, It's the First Day of School... Forever! It introduces a boy who keeps reliving his increasingly-disastrous first day in a new school. The Gotham Group this month optioned movie rights to the book.
Feiwel is pleased to be in step with her aim for her imprint: "Part of my founding mission statement was to ‘make new friends and keep the old—one is silver and the other gold,' " she says.
