Oakley Hall, a prolific author and influential writing teacher best known for the novels "Downhill Racers" and "Warlock" and as co-founder of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, died yesterday in Nevada City (Nevada County). He was 88.
His death was announced by his daughter, Brett Hall Jones, current director of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. The cause of death was kidney disease and cancer.
Mr. Hall was born in 1920 in San Diego and grew up in that city's Mission Hills district and in Honolulu. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, he joined the Marines, serving in the Pacific during World War II.
After the war, Mr. Hall studied in Europe on the G.I. Bill and went on to earn a Masters of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
In 1968 he was a founder of the creative writing program at the University of California at Irvine; he co-founded the Squaw Valley Community of Writers the next year. Among the writers whose careers he helped to launch are Richard Ford and Michael Chabon.
In a review of Mr. Hall's 2001 book, "Ambrose Bierce and the Death of Kings," Chronicle book critic David Kipen wrote, "Oakley Hall gives a master class every time he practices his craft."
Mr. Hall and his wife of 65 years, Barbara Hall, lived half of each year in San Francisco and half in Squaw Valley. He is survived by his wife, their son, Oakley Hall III; their daughters, Sands Hall, Tracy Hall and Brett Hall Jones; and seven grandchildren.
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