ill Hiatt has been teaching

English at Beverly Hills High

School since 1981--long enough

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

to be children of his former students .

write , reveal much about themselves

( It ' s a good thing that doesn ' t make him

every time they publish ; their work is a

feel old--much !) Bill also sponsored the

part of them , and maybe not a part that

high school ' s literary magazine from

they have shared with other people

1992 until June of 2012 , which gave him

before . Also , authors have to be willing

the opportunity to work with a number

to face rejection ; regardless of the

of young aspiring writers .

nature or quality of a book , not

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

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 early this

September he finished another novel ,

Living with Your Past Selves . Questions from readers prompted him to finish a prequel novelette , " Echoes from My

Past Lives ," in March . 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 .

he stayed up all night to finish the

What does the future hold for Bill ?

material . His students enjoyed the

Here are some previously unrevealed

stories so much that they actually

notes about his upcoming projects . A

looked forward to grammar tests--and

sequel to Living with Your Past Selves is

they scored higher on the semester

in its early stages . The working title is

grammar final than any of his previous

Divided Against Yourselves . If you have

classes ! Their response to his writing

read LWYPS , you will enjoy the return

made Bill wonder if there was a way to

of most of the characters from that

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 ,

work , together with some new additions that will surprise you . The locations will vary much more , and the book will also explore new mythological territory .

( Those Arthurian stories took root in a number of other cultures , with interesting results .) Bill has also written about a third of a non-fiction work whose working title is How to

Communicate with Teachers : a Guide for

Parents , which takes advantage of his

33 years of teaching experience . Being a dreamer , he hopes to release both works

by the end of the summer . Beyond that , who knows ? Bill has considered writing a anthology of Greek myths that might be more approachable to modern teenagers than the currently available alternatives , a short poetry anthology , and even a video enhanced writing textbook that will enable him to take advantage of his experience in making instructional videos . He plans to address all of those projects soon ... just as soon as he can figure out a way to clone himself .