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That Was Then, This Is Now Author Biography

Susan Eloise Hinton, known to her readers as S. E. Hinton, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1950, a setting that has influenced the majority of her young adult novels. In fact, Hinton is commonly credited as the person who revolutionized the tone of young adult fiction, by using gritty, realistic settings such as the Tulsa-like background of her hugely successful debut novel, The Outsider. Published in 1967, when Hinton was seventeen and a student at Tulsa's Will Rogers High School, the book also set the standard for future young adult novels, by addressing hard issues that teens faced, such as gang violence. The novel was published under her initials, because the publisher feared that their audience, mainly young men, would not accept a female author, especially since most of her narrators are male. Even though Hinton's gender was eventually revealed, she has used her initials for all of her...
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