Discover new books on Goodreads

See if your friends have read any of Bill Hiatt's books

6 ratings | 5 reviews | avg rating:4.17

Bill Hiatt’s Followers (40)

Bill’s Bookshelves

to-read (1)
currently-reading (0)
read (6)
did-not-finish (0)

Bill’s Friends (108)

Beagle Lover (Avid Reader)

29,918 books | 635 friends

J.J. DiBenedetto

152 books | 391 friends

Rachel

942 books | 50 friends

Zoe

451 books | 85 friends

Melissa Bowersock

224 books | 200 friends

Kathy Clark

147 books | 2,632 friends

Kathy Clark

32 books | 341 friends

Kian Lavi

1,007 books | 264 friends

More friends…

Bill Hiatt

Goodreads Author

Born

in Santa Monica, The United States

Website

http://billhiatt.com/

Genre

Fantasy, Young Adult

Member Since

December 2012

edit data

Bill Hiatt has been teaching English at Beverly Hills High School since 1981--long enough for some of his current students to be children of his former students. (It's a good thing that doesn't make him feel old--much!) Bill also sponsored the high school's literary magazine from 1992 until June of 2012, which gave him the opportunity to work with a number of young aspiring writers.

Although teaching has been and remains Bill's first love, he has also been drawn to creative writing of various sorts. From high school on, he wrote short stories, a little poetry, and an earlier novel, finished in 1982. By that point, the increasing demands of teaching kept him from pursuing writing as actively as he would have liked, but his impulse to write co Bill Hiatt has been teaching English at Beverly Hills High School since 1981--long enough for some of his current students to be children of his former students. (It's a good thing that doesn't make him feel old--much!) Bill also sponsored the high school's literary magazine from 1992 until June of 2012, which gave him the opportunity to work with a number of young aspiring writers.

Although teaching has been and remains Bill's first love, he has also been drawn to creative writing of various sorts. From high school on, he wrote short stories, a little poetry, and an earlier novel, finished in 1982. By that point, the increasing demands of teaching kept him from pursuing writing as actively as he would have liked, but his impulse to write continued to poke him from somewhere in the back of his mind. A few years ago a particular group of students inspired him to create grammar tests in the form of short stories, with the students themselves as characters. In some cases he got so caught up in the writing that he stayed up all night to finish the material. His students enjoyed the stories so much that they actually looked forward to grammar tests--and they scored higher on the semester grammar final than any of his previous classes! Their response to his writing made Bill wonder if there was a way to find time to write and still be the kind of teacher he wanted to be.

Another force pulling Bill in the direction of writing has been (ironically) teaching, particularly his consistent advice to students to get outside their comfort zones and follow their dreams--advice he realized was somewhat hypocritical if he wasn't following it himself. After all, teaching, though certainly his most important dream, is well inside his comfort zone by now. Publishing, on the other hand, is a different kind of exposure, more scary in some ways and definitely outside his comfort zone. Authors, regardless of the genre in which they write, reveal much about themselves every time they publish; their work is a part of them, and maybe not a part that they have shared with other people before. Also, authors have to be willing to face rejection; regardless of the nature or quality of a book, not everyone is going to like it. Despite the risks involved, Bill eventually realized he needed to follow his own advice if he really wanted his students to follow it. After that, he squeezed in a little time to write each day, and eventually he finished another novel. He hopes his readers will enjoy reading his work as much as he enjoys creating it, and he hopes that his example may encourage more of his students to push themselves a little to get what they really want out of life.
...more

164 posts
Bill Hiatt's Blog

Substack Post for March

As you can tell from the sidebar, I’ve recently started publishing material on Substack that I might formerly have published here. While there isn’t too much point in publishing the same pieces in two different places, I want to make sure that visitors to this website have easy access to anything I publish elsewhere. Consequently, I’ll preview all the content here and provide links. As with all my

Combine Editions
Bill Hiatt’s books

Average rating: 4.03 · 981 ratings · 162 reviews · 33 distinct works • Similar authors

	Living With Your Past Selves (Spell Weaver #1) 3.88 avg rating — 248 ratings — published 2012 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Different Lee (Different Dragon, #1) 3.90 avg rating — 178 ratings — published 2016 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Divided against Yourselves (Spell Weaver, #2) 3.91 avg rating — 95 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fateful Pathways: A Story of Theseus (Whispers from Olympus: Novels Based on Greek Mythology) 4.15 avg rating — 81 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hidden among Yourselves (Spell Weaver, #3) 4.36 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harmony and Disharmony: A Story of Orpheus and Jason (Whispers from Olympus: Novels Based on Greek Mythology) 4.34 avg rating — 29 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Evil within Yourselves (Spell Weaver, #4) 4.63 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Separated from Yourselves (Spell Weaver, #6) 4.63 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2016 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Soul Switch (Different Dragon #2) 4.19 avg rating — 26 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	We Walk in Darkness (Spell Weaver, #5) 4.33 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars