The writer passed away on 3 September (15) in Venice, California, according to the New York Times.

Burton was best known for her feminist works, including 1972's I'm Running Away From Home, but I'm Not Allowed to Cross the Street: A Primer of Women's Liberation, and Heartbreak Hotel, which won the Maxwell Perkins Prize for outstanding first novel.

At the age of 56, the writer attended the American Film Institute film school and went on to win AFI's Mary Pickford Prize for top screenplay. In 2002, she wrote the screenplay for Manna from Heaven, which starred Shirley Jones and Cloris Leachman.