James W. Hall (born 1947) is an American author and professor from Florida. He has written over a dozen novels, four books of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a collection of essays. His first novel Under Cover of Daylight was written in 1987. In 2012 he wrote a book called Hit Lit that analyzed the common features of the twelve most commercially successful books of the past hundred years. He taught creative writing in Florida for forty years.