James Dalessandro was born in Cleveland, Ohio and educated at Ohio University and UCLA Film School. In 1973, he founded the Santa Cruz Poetry Festival, the nation's largest literary event, with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowskii and William Burroughs. He is the author of four books, including the best selling novel "1906," about the great San Francisco Earthquake, and "Citizen Jane" the true story of a San Francisco woman who spent 13 years tracking down and putting away the man who murdered her aunt. He sold "1906" to Warner Brothers after an intense bidding war with Dreamworks/Univerisal and wrote the screenplay, which is now scheduled to be directed by Brad Bird for a Pixar live action film. He wrote and produced "Citizen Jane" for Hallmark MOW, the only true crime story in the network history. He is the award winning writer/director/producer of the documentary "The Damnedest, Finest Ruins" for KQED/PBS, now showing on their Youtube.com channel. He won the Platinum Broadcaster's Award for writing "The House of Blues Radio Hour." He is writer and producer of "Petrosino" the story of the New York cop who waged a 26 year war to destroy the NY Mafia, and writer/producer of "The Chosen" based on an idea by Stan Lee.