Susan Eloise Hinton – American writer

Susan Eloise Hinton is an American writer. She is best known for her young-adult novels, which she wrote during high school. She is the author of The Outsiders, which was her first and most popular novel. Her realistic way of describing teenage life has brought her fans worldwide. In 1988 she received Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association. This award is presented annually to the author whose works “touched the hearts of young readers and helped us (adults) hear their true voice, feelings and thoughts to penetrate into the young man’s life to understand it better.”
Susan Eloise Hinton was born on July 22, 1948 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Susan studied at Will Rogers High School. In 1965 she began writing. The book, based on personal experiences, was inspired by two rival gangs at her school – the Greasers and the Socs. In 1967 the book was published by Viking Press. She was seventeen years old.
In the summer of 1970 Susan married David Inhofe, a software engineer. In August 1983 she gave birth to their son Nicolas David Inhofe. Nicolas worked as a sound effects recordist on the movie Ice Age: The Meltdown.

Francis Ford Coppola directed film adaptations of The Outsiders (March 1983) and Rumble Fish (October 1983). The film The Outsiders was shown at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1983.
Tim Hunter filmed Tex (1982) based on her novel. That Was Then… This Is Now (1985) was directed by Christopher Cain.

Hinton played cameo roles in three of the four films. Movies were the beginning of a successful career for many, while still quite young actors: Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, Mickey Rourke, Patrick Swayze, and others.
In 2009, Hinton played the role of the school principal in The Legend of Billy Fail.
In 1998 the writer was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame at Oklahoma State University–Tulsa.
In the 1990s Hinton wrote Big David, Little David and The Puppy Sister for younger readers. She published Hawkes Harbor, a novel for adults, in 2004.