By VANESSA LANGDON
News Editor
Pen names, historically accurate details, and the power of the Internet were among the things discussed Thursday when the English club welcomed Jacopo della Quercia.
The author, originally from Pennsylvania, has found inspiration in Albany where he penned his novels, “The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy,” and his most recent publication, “License to Quill.” Quercia read from the latter of the two and signed copies purchased by those in the audience.
This first event for the English club for the spring semester was Quercia’s first appearance at a Capital Region college. The author was animated and enthralled the little over a handful of people in Standish room A.
The conversation volleyed back and forth with Quercia giving tips to the hopeful authors in the room. Born Giacomo Calabria, he spoke about the benefits of using pen names.
“I find it liberating writing under a pen name,” said Quercia. “Many people think I’m a woman.”
His venture into pen names began out of necessity because he was working on the Obama presidential campaign when he started writing for cracked.com; to avoid any issues, he needed the pseudonym. He chose the Jacopo moniker because of its historical leanings and similarities to his given name.
“My writing has always been a history lesson in disguise,” Quercia said.
His most recent novel, “License to Quill,” centers on Shakespeare.
“It’s really a spy novel set in Shakespeare’s time… if you’ve read “1984,” that was Shakespeare’s London,” said Quercia. “They had thought police.”
The novel was written in the style of a serial, meaning that you can open to any page of the novel and be drawn to continue reading – Quercia did just that when he flipped to a random page and began reading to the group. The excerpt he read detailed Shakespeare’s encounter with ravens.
He spent six months researching for each of his novels and then another six months writing – for six months the research was his full time job. The research process, he says, was aided in huge part by the ability to do research online. He swears by Google books.
“I was able to do decades of research in months,” said Quercia. “It came to the point where I had the material memorized.”
In addition to the research he raves about apprenticeship – a model he believes should never be dismissed.
“I do believe I took something of a night class,” said Quercia speaking of his friendship with Ray Errol Fox. “Twice a week we call each other between 1 and 2 a.m. and just talk about writing, movies, everything.”
These apprenticeship-type relationships have educated Quercia in many ways – he says he got his master’s while working on the Obama campaign and taught himself Latin after leaving a program at CUNY due to swine flu.
“It is possible to be your own teacher you wish you could have had,” Quercia said of being self-taught.
The advantages of a community of writers and creative types are innumerable, said Quercia; he spoke of working together to make work come to life and said that each person can find ways to help each other.
“You no longer become one writer, you almost become a school of thought,” Quercia said.
He invited everyone in attendance to send him their stuff to look over, allowing them into his school of thought.
The intimate group that Thursday evening was with Quercia for his first college visit, made more memorable still as it was his thirty-second birthday.
“Although there was a small turnout, he was pretty awesome, he drew a crow in my book,” said Shanell Hanna, an English major at the College.
English club president Christina Romeo was not discouraged by the limited turnout.
“Usually with our events it’s not about quantity but what you get out of the experience,” Romeo said.
The club hopes to get more local authors in the future to make up for the loss of the Frequency North events that were previously held on campus.
The event, while limited in its reach, did get the attention of one first-time attendee.
“I thought he kept it really entertaining,” said Cassidy O’Connor, a childhood special education major. “I would definitely listen to him talk again.”
