Quotables:

"Fiction has an extraordinary power to enlighten and motivate."

"A fiction writer by definition is a paid—make that underpaid—professional liar."

"You do this because you love it. You get a part-time job and marry someone with a full-time job."

"I think it’s possible to be both character- and plot-driven."

"I sometimes meet someone who calls himself a writer who has not read a book in 20 years. That gets my Italian temperament up."

March 20, 2005

How does the son of a Cleveland truck driver go on to co-found the Santa Cruz Poetry Festival, for four years the nation's largest literary event, bringing together the likes of Ken Kesey, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Bob Kaufman?

Ask James Dalessandro.

How does this same Ohio trans-plant become published in four genres—poetry in Canary In A Coal Mine, murder mystery in the highly acclaimed Bohemian Heart, true crime in Citizen Jane, and his latest, the historical novel 1906, an epic recreation of the great San Francisco earthquake and fire?

Ask James Dalessandro.

Yes, go ahead and ask him. This 20-year veteran of the Writer's Guild of America who teaches the longest-running screenwriting course in San Francisco will be our very special guest this month.

Need we say more? Okay, he's written the screenplays for all three of his books, including 1906, which sold to director Barry Levinson and Warner Brothers after a heated Hollywood bidding war.

He is currently writer and co-director, with four-time Oscar winner Ben Burtt, of The Damndest Finest Ruins, a feature documentary about the 1906 earthquake. He is also co-executive producer and screenwriter of Citizen Jane for Wolper Productions and Court TV, producer and co-writer, with Lidia Fraser, of Draconin, a trilogy ofand animated feature films.

If you haven't yet read his 1906, it's a page-turning tale of political corruption, vendettas, romance, rescue—and murder—based on recently uncovered facts that forever change our understanding of what really happened. Told by a feisty young reporter, Annalisa Passarelli, the novel paints a vivid picture of the Victorian-era city, from the mansions of Nob Hill to the underbelly of the Barbary Coast to the arrival of tenor Enrico Caruso and the Metropolitan Opera. Central to the story is the ongoing battle—fought even as the city burns—that pits incompetent and unscrupulous politicians against a coalition of honest police officers, newspaper editors, citizens and a lone federal prosecutor. It's a wild ride better than anything at Disneyland.

Vincent Bugliosi, author of Helter Skelter, calls 1906 "a bold, sweeping novel … a richly textured, engrossing and extraordinary tale." Oakley Hall, author of Ambrose Bierce and The Queen of Spades, admires its "admirable historical detail."

And certainly not every novel can prompt a promotional tea party "under the gilt-and-glass dome of the Garden Court in the Palace Hotel." As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White "perched" across the tea table from Alex Fagan, the former police chief who now heads the Mayor's Office of Emergency Services and Homeland Security. "The two people most accountable for the city's response in a disaster, Fagan and Hayes-White were on hand," the Chronical continued, "to support a new book about the San Francisco earthquake that promises to be a publishing sensation—and to warn that when the next monster quake hits, citizens must be prepared to play an active role in response to the emergency."

We can all look forward to Dalessandro's responses to your questions regarding his long and eventful writing life. In the meantime, you might want to visit him at www.1906earthquake.com.