But Hilbert had long fostered an emerging ambition of her own by studying such diverse writers as Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, Graham Greene, Omar Kayam, and Grace Metalious.

[5] In 1980, Hilbert began publishing poems in literary journals, and an editor at Event Horizon Press noticed her work, launching her debut collection, Mansions, in 1990.

Her subsequent books include a fiction collection, Women Who Make Money and the Men Who Love Them (1994), which won the Staple First Editions prize in England, and six other books of poetry: Deep Red (1993), Feathers and Dust (1996), Transforming Matter (2000), Greatest Hits (2001), Traveler in Paradise: New and Selected Poems (2004), and Gravity: New & Selected Poems (2018).

Long Beach poet and fiction writer Gerald Locklin authored Two Novellas in collaboration with Hilbert and has since shared the lectern with her many times at readings in the U.S. and United Kingdom.

Hilbert's life and work since the tragic loss of her husband have become the subjects of an independent biopic, Grief Becomes Me: A Poet's Journey, produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Christine Fugate.