S.E. Hinton

S. E. Hinton was born Susan Eloise Hinton in 1948 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is known for her young adult novels and most famous for "The Outsiders." She wrote in during high school when she was attending Will Rogers High School in Tulsa. The book is about a conflict between two of the gangs from the city; The Socs and the Greasers. The Socs are said to live on the West side of the city and the Greasers on the East side. Writing through the perspective of the Greasers and making them sympathetic was unique.

She is a very private person but has revealed her love of literature and writing. She also loves to take a variety of classes at the universities in Tulsa and horseback riding. Hinton competes in dressage and jumping. She married David Inhofe in 1970; they have a son, Nicolas David Inhofe. He was a sound effects recordist on "Ice Age: the Meltdown."

She began writing her best-selling debut novel, "The Outsiders" when she was seventeen years old, which means she reached a peak of writing at a very young age. It was published in 1967, during her freshmen year in college. Her teacher suggested she use her initials because her feminine first name would make male publishers turn away from it. She continued writing using her initials to keep some her public and private lives separate.

In 1983 two movies were made by Francis Ford Coppola based on her book, "The Outsiders." She co-wrote the script for "Rumble Fish." She also worked as a location scout and had cameo appearances in three of the four movies based on her book. Hinton played a nurse in "The Outsiders," a typing teacher in "Tex" and a propositioning prostitute in "Rumble Fish." Hinton played a school principal in "The Legend of Billy Fail."

Hinton won the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1988 for her first four young adult novels, "The Outsiders," "That Was Then, This is Now," "Rumble Fish" and "Tex." She was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame at the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers of Oklahoma State University in Tulsa.

After writing "The Outsiders" Hinton's fame shot up so fast that she became known as the voice of the youth of America. The pressure was too high. Therefore she suffered from a three-year writer's block. Finally, her boyfriend at the time, who later became her husband, broke her writer's block by telling her that she had to write two pages before she could go out. This lead to "That Was Then, This is Now." The writing was much more meticulous because she was studying writing at the time in college. She finished it in 1970 and was married a few months later.

She released "Taming the Star Runner" in 1985 and then in 1995 she changed her genre from young adult to younger children's fiction, "Big David, Little David" and "The Puppy Sister." She has also written adult fiction such as "Hawkes Harbor." S. E. Hinton now lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband, dogs, and horses.