About Me

I was born to Robert and Bonnie Hinkle in 1947 in a rural area some ten miles from Stratford, Oklahoma…the second of five children.

My four sisters and I spent most of our early school years split between various grade schools in Ada, Oklahoma—where Dad worked—and a two-room country school called Galey, located in a small rural community between Ada and Asher, Oklahoma. Galey School had two rooms…Grades 1 through 4 in “the little room” and Grades 5 through 8 in “the big room.”

I first became interested in writing at Galey School when the head teacher, M. R. Tucker, read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Grades 5 through 8. I recall being very impressed with, and wanted to emulate, the writer’s strong talent for characterization.

In 1963, my father’s employer, Thomas Concrete and Pipe Company, relocated to Oklahoma City and moved his family to Moore. I graduated from Moore High School two years later, in 1965, and joined the Air Force.

Aside from 6 months temporary duty in Okinawa, I spent my full Air Force term on a SAC base near Altus, Oklahoma. While stationed at Altus, I began dabbling in the written word as well as managing to stack up some college credits, taking extension classes at night. I’m not sure but what I was just bored with barracks life.

While at Altus, I married Julia Marie Cromwell, daughter of James Cromwell, who, at the time, was a fairly well known evangelist.

Upon my discharge from the military, Julia and I entered the ministry, spending several years evangelizing on the road, mostly in southern states. We even spent a few of those years propping up and taking down a 50’ x 70’ gospel tent. Tent evangelism! But that episode ended in the fall of 1970 when, after I set the tent on the banks of the Ohio River, a flood came and threatened to sweep us downstream. That was enough. I sold the tent, the chairs, the platform, and the truck to some poor sucker in Illinois and headed back to Oklahoma.

In 1971—when my daughter, Rinda, was around 2 years old—I took the pastor position in a small town in Oklahoma. Two major things happened during this period. Our second daughter, Kimberly, was born, and I received an epiphany that many years later would inspire my third novel, The Sabbatical.

Julia and I have been married 42 years. We have four children—Rinda, Kimberly, Jana, and Bobby—and four grandchildren. Julia and I now reside in Guthrie, Oklahoma. [My daughter Rinda Elliott is also a writer; you can visit her website at
www.RElliott4.WordPress.com .]