Biography
Susan Eloise Hinton was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on July 22, 1950. She originally wanted to grow up to be a cattle rancher, but having almost nothing to do as a child, she turned to reading and writing, latter abandoned her ranching dreams. When she was in high school, her father was diagnosed with cancer. To cope with his condition, she began writing books. During this time, she was inspired to write her first book, The Outsiders, (which was published in 1967 by Viking) because she was not happy with the books for young adults at that time. It was based off of two rival gangs at her school. The Outsiders sold over four million copts in just the United States, letting Hinton get into the University of Tulsa, where she met David Inhofe, her future husband. Through The Outsiders, Hinton received a lot of fame, but also a lot of pressure to write something else. All this resulted in a three-year long writers block. Her boyfriend, David Inhofe, helped her to break this block by making her write two pages a day if she wanted to leave the house. These pages ended up being her next book, That Was Then, This Is Now, which was finished in 1970. A few months later, she got married. Rumble Fish, her next book, was published in 1975. It was the shortest novel she ever published, and most people thought is was her last book. In 1979, Tex was published, proving this wrong, but for the next nine years, she did not publish any more books. Instead, she advised movie makers and started a family.198os were big years for S. E. Hinton. In 1983, her son, Nicholas David, was born, and The Outsiders and Rumble fish were made into movies. In 1985, That Was Then, This Is Now was also made into a movie. In 1988, S.E. Hinton became the first person to receive the YASD/SLJ Author Achievement Award. Her next book, Taming The Star Runner, was published that same year. Her last two books were her most unexpected. In 1995, Big David, Little David was published, written for kindergarteners. That same year, she came out with another book for young children, The Puppy Sister. In 2004 she published Hawkes Harbor and in 2007 she published Some Of Tim's Stories. S. E. Hinton, age 65, now lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with her husband David. Her son Nicholas is in collage. She has not currently published any new books.
