Many of Hyde's literary works are generally optimistic explorations of ordinary people, characters who are troubled or down-on-their-luck or recovering from past difficulties or abuse.
According to published interviews,[4] the genesis of the idea for the novel came when Hyde's car caught fire in what she described as the "bad neighborhood" in which she lived, and two total strangers came to her assistance, then left before she could even thank them.
Since then Pay It Forward, has been translated into twenty languages for publication in more than thirty countries, and was chosen among the Best Books for Young Adults in 2001 by the American Library Association and continues to be among her most popular and requested works.
The movie Pay It Forward (Warner Brothers) was released theatrically in 2000, starring Haley Joel Osment, Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey.
More recently, Hyde She has served on the 1998 fiction fellowship panel of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and on the editorial staff of the Santa Barbara Review and Central Coast Magazine.
[7] As a professional public speaker she has addressed the National Conference on Education, twice spoken at Cornell University,[8] met with Americorps members at the White House, and shared a dais with Bill Clinton.