Dick Hall (writer)
Richard Victor Hall was an Australian writer.
Hall attended St Aloysius' College and then studied at the University of Sydney. He worked as a journalist and with Freedom from Hunger before becoming a secretary to Labor Party leader Gough Whitlam. Following the Labor Party's victory at the 1972 federal election, he became an advisor in Aboriginal Affairs and then in Secondary Industry. In 1973 he was a founding member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council. While serving on the Board, he was involved in the Public Lending Right scheme.
In 1976, Neville Wran, the Premier of New South Wales, appointed Hall to the Cultural Affairs Advisory Body, where Hall and Donald Horne founded the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. He also served on the New South Wales State Library Council, and was president from 1980 to 1984. Hall also ghost-wrote two books, for Labor politicians Jack Hallam and Mick Young, and also wrote biographies, political non-fiction, and two crime thrillers. In 1994 he won the first James Joyce Foundation Fellowship and consequently spent time at Trinity College, Dublin. In his later years he also worked as an advisor for Wayne Swan.
Hall died after a long illness in 2003.
