'Doing every writer a favor'

 

“Anywriter who gives a reader a pleasurable experience is doing every other writera favor because it will make the reader want to read other books. I am all forit.” – S.E. Hinton

 

Born in Oklahoma on this date in1948, Hinton became a household name in her teens when she wrote The Outsiders,her first and most popular novel. She began writing it in 1965 inspired by tworival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs, at Will Rogers High School where shewas a senior.  Her desire was to showsympathy toward the Greasers by writing from their point of view.

 

To date, it’s sold more than 14million copies (still over 100,000 annually), has been made into a movie and isa Tony-winning Broadway play.  Hinton, who is credited withstarting the YA genre, has been acclaimed for the realism and attention to thedetails that Young Adults not only identify with but also embrace.  They say she is a true spokesperson for theirpoints of view and America’s librarians agree.  The American Library Associationawarded her its inaugural Margaret A.Edwards Award for her cumulative contribution in writing for teens.  

 

AmongHinton’s other top sellers are That WasThen, This Is Now; Rumble Fish;and Tex, also all adapted intomovies.  Hinton is a member of theOklahoma Writers Hall of Fame and acclaimed for “books that leave a reader bothsatisfied and wanting more. 

 

“I love to write ending lines,” she said. “Usually, I know them first and write toward them, but (even) if I knewhow they came to me, I wouldn't tell.”

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