Even though I wrote a memorial over two years, I want to write another short note about Bill. I think about him regularly and miss him. He was a marvelous teacher, and he had the knack of letting me know how I might improve my writing while at the same time making me feel positive about what I was doing. The world needs more people like Bill. He was a good and decent man, which is to say he was a great man.

Mr. Wiegand was the best teacher I had when I attended the masters in creative writing program at San Francisco State University. I remember the care with which he read and critiqued my manuscripts. I think of him him fondly and send good wishes to his family and friends.

I will miss Bill, undoubtedly one the finest writing teachers in American letters, but his editorial voice will always be with me to guide my words and sentences away from the rocky reefs of self destruction.

I did not have as much of a relationship with Mr. Wiegand as some others writing here. As diffuse as my fiction was in the 1960s, he approved me for the SFSU writing Masters program. And though I never took a course from him, he was one of the readers on my thesis. I've been sorry that I didn't know him better and work with him more. He was so giving that, despite our slight relationship, he critiqued a novel fragment I sent him years after I'd graduated from the program. Very discerning and accurate. Open-minded, yet critical. Quite a guy.

Bill was a man of wit and honesty and integrity. He encouraged us to understand the process of writing, of writing as a craft...Bill was one of the readers of my thesis/short stories...his encouragement was so real because it was based on honesty. His praise was never false...

Bill was one of my creative-writing teachers at SFSU over a two-year period when I was getting my MA. He was an excellent teacher; for one semester I even enjoyed serving as his unofficial Teaching Assistant for an undergrad course. But my most pleasurable times occurred right before that class when we would play tennis. And then after class he would treat me to dinner at a wonderful Mexican restaurant. Those were great times for me, and Bill enjoyed them as well. After I graduated, we stayed in touch the entire time. I am very sad to hear about his passing, and I will miss him greatly. A good and special man. Tim Houghton

I arrived at San Francisco State in the fall of 1973 and matriculated into the graduate creative writing program in January of 1974. I was both a law school and U.S. Navy Flight program drop-out without much of a future. I only had a couple of one-act plays under my belt. Nevertheless, I was accepted into the program and the first instructor who took an interest in my work was Bill Wiegand. Bill apparently had a play produced when he was in Michigan, and though a novelist, had a good sense of the problems confronting a playwright. He encouraged me and when I later switched to the novel, he took pains (what pains!) to read my manuscripts. This went on for years, even after I moved back to my home state of Florida. I published my first novel in 1998 and Bill wrote a very favorable blurb that appeared on the inside flap of the dust cover. He's read everything single thing I've ever written, which was both a daunting and in many instances, tedious task. What a mentor! And all at the same time he was doing the same thing for other former students. One of the great influences on my life. I will sorely miss him.

I went to Penn as an undergrad – and although a lot of famous writers have emerged from there, I could never seem to find my way. So I basically wasted an incredibly expensive college education (sorry, mom and dad)! Strangely enough, even though all my life I had always written stories, it wasn’t until I went to San Francisco State University and attended their master’s degree program in creative writing that I finally started to think of myself as a writer. I’m not sure exactly what it was – maybe just being around like-minded people for once – and being able to read and learn first-hand from other students who were much more technically advanced and knowledgeable than I was. And to get the support and affirmation from my peers and professors that I had some degree of talent and that yes, I could do this. I was also incredibly fortunate to have the support of a mentor there, Professor Bill Wiegand – who was head of the creative writing department at the time – who was always so encouraging and positive, even when I was churning out absolute rubbish. Even after I graduated and moved to L.A., we kept in touch and he would send me books and check up on how I was doing with my writing career. As well as being a mentor, he was as good a friend as anyone could ask for. And he saw something in me and my writing that no one else did, and I think that’s something – and someone – every writer needs.

When I was growing up, my father (who was a long-time friend and colleague of Bill's) would on a rare occasion, refer to someone (including Bill) as a "good man." It was something I didn't understand at the time, and it wasn't until much later - after I had gotten to know Bill myself - and my father had passed away, in fact - that I came to realize what it meant - and that it was his highest form of praise. My father was right - Bill was a good man.