Author S.E. Hinton on the 50th anniversary of the Outsiders

"Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold."

Those famous words from the teen novel The Outsiders were written by then 16-year-old author S.E. Hinton more than 50 years ago.

Hinton's 1967 coming-of-age book describes the rivalries between two teen gangs in Oklahoma in the 1960s.

The unflinching, realistic depictions of gang violence, family dysfunction and teenage life made the book a subject of controversy but also a staple of high school curricula.

Hinton is in Vancouver this weekend  and stopped by the CBC's The Early Edition to speak with host Rick Cluff.

How did you come up with this story?

The story idea came from what was going on in my high school. I just liked to write and I had been writing for about eight years when I began The Outsiders.

I also wrote it to read it because back in those days, there wasn't anything realistic being written about teenage lives.

It was all "Mary Jane goes to the prom" — that kind of thing.

Why do you think it still resonates today?

Everyone identifies with being an outsider, even within their own group they don't feel like they can be themselves. They're still kind of putting on a mask to fit in.

I was 16 when I wrote it and those were the emotions I was feeling. It was pretty vivid in those days, and a lot of kids latch onto that.

I get the same letters — except now they're emails — that I got 50 years ago.

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What's it like to have so much enduring success on your first novel?

It wasn't like overnight fame and fortune. I went to New York and did some media. They weren't celebrity crazy in those days ... I wasn't on YouTube.

My first royalty check was like $10. Even in the 1960s, all you could buy is a couple of tanks of gas.

It built so slowly and I got used to it so gradually it didn't faze me.

But the royalty checks are bigger now?

Yes.

This book is read by so many high schoolers. How does that make you feel as an educator?

I'm not an educator — I'm a writer.

But people have learned so much from you.

No. I admire teachers that are out there on the front lines with all the problems they've got to face.

Teachers are my heroes. I'm glad I've made their lives a little easier because they can get kids who won't normally read a book to read a book.  

Do you reread the book occasionally?

I don't reread it at all.

I wrote three drafts of the book before the publisher saw it. I worked on the screen play [for the 1983 film directed by Francis Ford Coppola] and I worked on the short-lived TV version, and then I worked on the play version.

[laughing] Believe me I'm Outsiders-outed.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length.

Hinton will be at the West Point Grey United Church on April 1 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the book starting at 3 p.m. PT.