All About S.E.Hinton

I recently read The Outsiders for the first time, and I loved it so I decided to do some research about the woman who wrote it.

Susan Eloise Hinton was born on July 22, 1948, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1965, when she was just 16 years old, she began work on her first book, The Outsiders. She was inspired to write the book by two rivaling gangs at her school, Will Rogers High School, the Greasers and the Socs. She decided to write the book from a Greaser's point of view to show empathy toward the gang in real life.

The Outsiders was published by Viking in 1967, written by S.E.Hinton. She decided to use this gender-neutral moniker so that male readers wouldn't be put off by a woman writing from a boy's point of view. After the success of The Outsiders she gained a wild amount of popularity putting a lot of pressure on her, and resulting in a three-year long writers block. Her boyfriend (now her husband) helped her get past it by making her write two pages a day if she wanted to go anywhere. And because of his efforts That Was Then, This Is Now was finished in 1970 and published in 1971.

She went on to publish seven more books over the span of her career: Rumble Fish in 1975, Tex in 1979, Taming The Star Runner in 1988, Big David, Little David (which was a children's book) in 1995, The Puppy Sister (also a children's book) in 1995, Hawks Harbor (an adult novel) in 2004, and finally Tim's Stories in 2007.

Four of her books were turned into movies including Tex which opened in 1982, The Outsiders in 1983, Rumble Fish also in 1983, and That Was Then, This Is Now in 1985. She appeared in cameos in three of the movies, playing the typing teacher in Tex, Dallas's nurse in The Outsiders, and a prostitute in Rumble Fish. And she wasn't the only one in her "family" that made an appearance in a film, her horse played Tex's horse in the movie, which is fitting since his horse was based off of hers. She also acted as a location scout for the movies except for That Was Then, where she wasn't involved with the filming.

She married her boyfriend in the summer of 1970, and they had a son in 1983. Currently she lives with her husband at their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.


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