The book's popularity enabled Hinton to attend the University of Tulsa, where in 1970 she earned an education degree and met her future husband, David Inhofe. However, gaining fame and fortune at eighteen was not without problems—Hinton had writer's block for several years.

Further novels

Eventually, however, Hinton produced a second novel, That Was Then, This Is Now (1971), a tale of two foster brothers, Bryon and Mark, who are drifting apart. One becomes more involved in school and girlfriends, the other moves deeper into a career of crime and drugs. In Rumble Fish (1975), Hinton continued to explore the themes of gang violence and growing up. In this story a bitter young man, in a struggle to acquire a tough reputation, gradually loses everything meaningful to him. Hinton's next book, Tex (1979), which follows two brothers left in each other's care by their rambling father, likewise investigates how delinquent youths try to make it in a world shaped by protest, drugs, violence, and family disruption.

Movies

Hinton spent the ten-year interval between Tex and her next novel, Taming the Star Runner (1986), advising on the sets of several film adaptations of her books and starting a family. She also wrote the screenplay for the feature film version of Rumble Fish with director Francis Ford Coppola. In 1988 Hinton received the first Young Adult Services Division/ School Library Journal Author Award from the American Library Association.

Hinton has not produced as much work as other young adult novelists, but that has not prevented her from becoming a consistent favorite with her audience. Two of the movies adapted from her books, Tex and The Outsiders, were filmed in response to suggestions from young readers.

Even though she is no longer a teenager involved in the world about which she writes, Hinton believes that she is suited to writing adolescent fiction: "I don't think I have a masterpiece in me, but I do know I'm writing well in the area I choose to write in," she commented to Dave Smith of the Los Angeles Times. "I understand kids and I really like them. And I have a very good memory. I remember exactly what it was like to be a teenager that nobody listened to or paid attention to or wanted around. I mean, it wasn't like that with my own family, but I knew a lot of kids like that and hung around with them.… Somehow I always understood them. They were my type."

In 1995 Hinton published two books for younger readers, Puppy Sister and Big David, Little David, her first picture book. The intensely private Hinton lives in northern California with her husband and son, Nicholas David.