S. E. HINTON, WRITING 'THE OUTSIDERS' IN HIGH SCHOOL

Today, The Grandma has been reading The Outsiders, an amazing novel written by Susan E. Hinton, the American writer from Oklahoma, who was born on a day like today in 1948.

Susan Eloise Hinton (born July 22, 1948) is an American writer best known for her young-adult novels (YA) set in Oklahoma, especially The Outsiders (1967), which she wrote during high school. Hinton is credited with introducing the YA genre.

In 1988, she received the inaugural Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her cumulative contribution in writing for teens.

While still in her teens, Hinton became a household name as the author of The Outsiders, her first and most popular novel, set in Oklahoma in the 1960s. She began writing it in 1965. The book was inspired by two rival gangs at her school, Will Rogers High School, the Greasers and the Socs, and her desire to empathize with the Greasers by writing from their point of view. She wrote the novel when she was 16 and it was published in 1967. Since then, the book has sold more than 14 million copies.

In 2017, Viking Press stated the book sells over 500,000 copies a year.

Hinton's publisher suggested she use her initials instead of her feminine given names so that the first male book reviewers would not dismiss the novel because its author was female. After the success of The Outsiders, Hinton chose to continue writing and publishing using her initials because she did not want to lose what she had made famous and to allow her to keep her private and public lives separate.

In interviews, Hinton has said that she is a private person and an introvert who no longer does public appearances. She enjoys reading (Jane Austen, Mary Renault, and F. Scott Fitzgerald), taking classes at the local university, and horseback riding. Hinton also revealed to Vulture that she enjoys writing fan fiction.

She resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her husband David Inhofe, a software engineer she met in her freshman biology class at college. He is a cousin of former Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe.

The film adaptations The Outsiders (March 1983) and Rumble Fish (October 1983) were both directed by Francis Ford Coppola; Hinton cowrote the script for Rumble Fish with Coppola. Also adapted to film were Tex (July 1982), directed by Tim Hunter, and That Was Then... This Is Now (November 1985), directed by Christopher Cain. Hinton herself acted as a location scout, and she had cameo roles in three of the four films. She plays a nurse in Dallas's hospital room in The Outsiders. In Tex, she is the typing teacher. She also appears as a sex worker propositioning Rusty James in Rumble Fish. 

In 2009, Hinton portrayed the school principal in The Legend of Billy Fail.

Hinton received the inaugural 1988 Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American YA librarians, citing her first four YA novels, which had been published from 1967 to 1979 and adapted as films from 1982 to 1985. The annual award recognizes one author of books published in the U.S., and specified works taken to heart by young adults over a period of years, providing an 'authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives'. The librarians noted that in reading Hinton's novels a young adult may explore the need for independence and simultaneously the need for loyalty and belonging, the need to care for others, and the need to be cared for by them.

In 1992, she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa by the University of Tulsa, and in 1998 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame at the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers of Oklahoma State University–Tulsa.

More information: The Outsiders Fan Club

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S.E. Hinton published in 1967 by Viking Press. The book details the conflict between two rival gangs of White Americans divided by their socioeconomic status: the working-class "Greasers" and the upper-middle-class "Socs" (short for Socials). The story is told in first-person perspective by teenage protagonist Ponyboy Curtis, and takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1965, although this is never explicitly stated in the book.

Hinton began writing the novel when she was 15 and wrote the bulk of it when she was 16 and a junior in high school. She was 18 when the book was published. She released the work using her initials rather than her feminine given names (Susan Eloise) so that her gender would not lead male book reviewers to dismiss the work.

A film adaptation was produced in 1983 by Francis Ford Coppola, and a short-lived television series appeared in 1990, picking up where the movie left off. A dramatic stage adaptation was written by Christopher Sergel and published in 1990. A Tony Award-winning stage musical adaptation of the same name premiered on Broadway in 2024.

More information: Spark Notes

Anything you read can influence your work,
so I try to read good stuff.

Susan E. Hinton