Robert Hinson is the author of sixteen books and one award-winning play. Most of them are young-adult fiction. He has published widely, won numerous regional writing awards and honors including being nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize in Letters-Young-Adult Fiction('97 and '01), twice for the National Book Award('96 and '97), Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award('98), and the Boston Globe Horn Book Award in Fiction('98). He is the co-founder of the Writers Workshop of Asheville, one of the largest-member writing organizations in the US. He is on the advisory board of several publishing companies in the South, a friend to numerous authors, and has taken writing workshops under writers such as Eudora Welty, Elie Wiesel, and Reynolds Price, and poets Seamus Heaney and Nikki Giovanni. He has an earned Doctorate(Ph.D.) in English('92) from the Union Institute in Ohio, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters(Litt.D.)(Childrens Liturature)('98) from Nova University, Canada for his contribution to Young-Adult Fiction. He has taught English and Creative Writing in the public school systems, colleges, and universities of North and South Carolina for over 20 years. He currently teaches English at Lancaster High School and is the sponsor of the school's poetry club The Dead Poets' Society. His motto is “Writing's fun...so why stop now.”