How old was s.e. hinton when she wrote the outsiders

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.^[a] Hinton is credited with introducing the YA genre.^[4][5]

In 1988, she received the inaugural Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her cumulative contribution in writing for teens.^[6][b]

Career

While still in her teens, Hinton became a household name^[a] as the author of The Outsiders, her first and most popular novel, set in Oklahoma in the 1960s.

She began writing it in 1965.^[7] The book was inspired by two rival gangs at her school, Will Rogers High School,^[8] the Greasers and the Socs,^[3] and her desire to empathize with the Greasers by writing from their point of view.^[c] She wrote the novel when she was 16 a