James Dalessandro

James Dalessandro (born 1948) is an American writer and filmmaker. He is best known for his historical-fiction novel 1906 based on events surrounding the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.

A film adaptation of 1906, based on both the novel and Dalessandro's screenplay, has been in development at Warner Bros. and Pixar Animation Studios, in association with Walt Disney Pictures. Screenwriter and director Brad Bird has been developing a project based on the novel.

James Dalessandro was born in Cleveland, Ohio on September 3, 1948, and attended Valley Forge High School. He received his BA degree at Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, and studied screenwriting at UCLA, but did not receive a degree.

For many years, Dalessandro worked as a writer in the trailer/marketing department at Columbia Pictures, where he worked on dozens of films.

From 1973-77, he was co-founder of The Santa Cruz Poetry Festival, with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and served as its director for four years. As the nation's largest annual literary festival at the time, it brought Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and musicians like Anthony Braxton and Charles Lloyd to the seaside town of Santa Cruz, CA, which set attendance records (over 2,000 people per night) at the Civic Auditorium. It ushered in what Ferlinghetti called "A new era of American Poetry."

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