Meet the Author

Susan Eloise Hinton was born on the 22nd of July 1950 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since Oklahoma did not have many activities for girls, reading and writing became her pastimes. She also wanted to become a cattle rancher as a young girl but that ambition was overcome by her love for writing.

In her teens, Hinton realized that she wanted something more realistic; a story about what it is really like to be a teenager. So taking inspiration from real life events, she created a story about two gangs and their rivalry. The gangs belonged to two different classes of the society; the lower middle class ‘greasers’ and the upper class ‘Socs’. The story is narrated by her character of ‘Pony boy’. The novel was called ‘The Outsiders’ and it was published in 1967. It eventually sold over 4 million copies in the US. Using the profits of her sales she joined the University of Tulsa where she earned her degree. She married in 1970 and had a baby boy in August, 1983.

After working through a case of writer’s block, Hinton wrote her second novel called ‘That was Then, This was now’ - published in 1971. This was a story of two brothers and the differences in their lives and how these move them apart. In her novel ‘Rumble Fish’ (1975) Hinton also tells the story of gang wars and a young man who loses everything significant to him. Her book ‘Tex’ (1979) focuses on a story of two brothers living in a crazy family trying to survive through all of it.

Many of her books were adapted into films. ‘The Outsiders’ was released in March 1983 and ‘Rumble Fish’ in October 1983. The films were directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Her novels ‘Tex’ and ‘That was Then, This is Now’ were also made into films.

Hinton’s personal life is reserved. Presently she is still writing and lives with her husband David Inhofe in Tulsa. Her contribution to the American Literature for young adults was acclaimed in 1988 when she was given the ‘Margaret Edwards Young Adult Author Achievement Award’ for her work by the American Library Association.

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