Biography of the author of the outsiders

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    • The Outsiders (novel)

    1967 novel by S. E. Hinton

    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" (pronounced SOH-shiz—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 directed 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 in San Diego in 2023 then on Broadway in 2024.

    Plot

    Ponyboy Curtis, a fourteen-year-old boy who is a member of a "gang of greasers", is leaving a movie theater when he is jumped by "Socs", the greasers' rival gang. Several greasers, including Ponyboy's two older brothers—the paternal Darry and the popular Sodapop—come to his rescue. The next night, Ponyboy and two greaser friends, the hardened Dally and the quiet Johnny, meet Cherry and Marcia, a pair of Soc girls, at a drive-in movie theater. Cherry scorns Dally's rude advances, but Ponyboy speaks civilly with Cherry, emotionally connecting with a Soc for the first time in his life.

    Afterward, Ponyboy, Johnny, and their wisecracking friend Two-Bit begin to walk Cherry and M

    S. E. Hinton

    American writer (born 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.

    Career

    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.

    Personal life

    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 Vu

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    SE Hinton Biography

    • Official website
      S.E. Hinton, was and still is, one of the most popular and best known writers of young adult fiction. Her books have been taught in some schools, and banned from others. Her novels changed the way people look at young adult literature.
    • Read S.E. Hinton's 1966 Letter to Her Editor About What to Call The Outsiders
      S.E. Hinton wrote most of the classic coming-of-age novel The Outsiders when she was just 16 years old. That year, she got a D in creative writing.

      Obviously her teacher was blind to what makes Hinton’s writing so special: a talent for narrative verve, a keen understanding of class dynamics and a precision of language as only a teenager can understand it.
    • S.E Hinton
      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. Her stories written in the beginning were mostly about cowboys and gun fighting and horses.

    SE Hinton Interviews

    • SOME OF HINTON'S STORIES
      Forty years after her initial success with The Outsiders, author S.E. Hinton is back with Some of Tim's Stories, a clipped and concise look at two cousins whose lives take very different paths. In this vanityfair.com exclusive, Hinton discusses the evolution of her work.
    • Why ‘The Outsiders’ Lives On: A Teenage Novel Turns 50
      The book, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, was arguably one of the most influential young adult books of its time, and leading this tour was the self-described fanboy Danny O’Connor, 48, who made his own contribution to pop-culture history as a member of the 1990s hip-hop group House of Pain.
    • I just don't want everything pigeonholed
      On June 7, S.E. Hinton will make a rare appearance and accept the Tribune's Young Adult Book Prize at the

    Biography

    Susan Eloise Hinton was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has always enjoyed reading but wasn't satisfied with the literature that was being written for young adults, which influenced her to write novels like The Outsiders. That book, her first novel, was published in 1967 by Viking.

    Once published, The Outsiders gave her a lot of publicity and fame, and also a lot of pressure. S.E. Hinton was becoming known as “The Voice of the Youth” among other titles. This kind of pressure and publicity resulted in a three year long writer's block.

    Her boyfriend (and now, her husband), who had gotten sick of her being depressed all the time, eventually broke this block. He made her write two pages a day if she wanted to go anywhere. This eventually led to That Was Then, This Is Now.

    That Was Then, This Is Now is known to be a much more well thought out book than The Outsiders. Because she read a lot of great literature and wanted to better herself, she made sure that she wrote each sentence exactly right. She continued to write her two pages a day until she finally felt it was finished in the summer of 1970, she got married a few months later. That Was Then, This is Now was published in 1971.

    In 1975, S.E. Hinton published Rumble Fish as a novel (she had published a short story version in a 1968 edition of Nimrod, which was a literary supplement for the University of Tulsa Alumni Magazine).

    Rumble Fish was the shortest novel she had published. It received a great deal of contrasting opinions, with one reviewer claiming it to be her best book and the next claiming it to be her last.

    The latter was apparently wrong. Tex was published in 1979, four years after Rumble Fish. It received great reviews and people raved about how the writing style had matured since previous publications. Tex would be the last book S.E. Hinton published for nine years. After another span of four years, S.E. Hinton's son Nick was born.

    Four years after Tex

  • What was the author’s inspiration for the outsiders?