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...