Allan Zullo lives the writer’s dream. He resides on a North Carolina mountain, travels the world and works about 10 months a year writing books.

Not bad for a shy kid from Rockford who once dreamed of being a sports writer. He chose NIU because of the Northern Star, and quickly caught on with the sports department, working for fellow Rockfordian Gary Watson.

After graduation, Allan spent three years reporting for the Rockford Register Republic, then did free-lance magazine writing. In 1973 he answered a blind ad in Editor & Publisher, and soon was contacted about a writing position in south Florida that paid twice what he’d made in Rockford.

“I didn’t even know what the National Enquirer was. And then I said, Oh, my God …”

Despite the tabloid’s less-than-stellar reputation, Allan saw potential for it to become a cutting-edge, credible newspaper. So he entered the world of UFOs, ghost hunters, Elvis and head-transplant operations.

“Did we push the envelope?” he asks. “Absolutely. But I never once saw anyone make up a story. … Everything you see today in the mainstream press is a direct result of what the Enquirer did in the ’70s and ’80s. Journalism back then was kind of stuck up. But we were writing what people wanted to read and not forcing anything on them.”

The Enquirer transformation he had expected – “to become USA Today, before USA Today” – never quite happened. So, he took his interest in offbeat news to a new medium: books. In 1985, he struck gold with “The Baseball Hall of Shame,” which would become an 11- book series. Seventeen publishers had rejected the idea before Simon and Schuster said yes. The series sold more than 2 million copies.

“It opened doors for me and I never looked back,” Allan says. “If you believe in something, you don’t let others say no.” Today he’s written more than 70 books, ranging from the Hall of Shame series to a kids’ ghost-stories series to titles like “World’s Dumbest Crooks.” Lately, he’s even done books for Scholastic about Holocaust children.

Much of his confidence, and passion for writing, was born at NIU and at the Northern Star. “Instructors told me, ‘Write to the reader.’ I took that to heart,” he says. “Most of my books are light-hearted, but they are geared to a specific market – whether for golf or fishermen or grandparents or whatever. I write to them, and that’s why they work.”

Allan and his wife, Kathy, have been married 37 years. They have two daughters and two grandchildren.