An Introduction
My Bio for Illumination
Greetings, fellow writers, editors, and friends! I’m Andrew Jacono. I joined Illumination about a month ago, and for some reason haven’t yet formally introduced myself. I’ve finally decided to come out and give a bit of background about who I am and what I hold dear.
The Beginning
I was born on Long Island, New York in 1997 to a kind, caring, and fiercely loyal cosmetologist mother and an ambitious yet unabashedly goofy surgeon father. Until my younger siblings were born, I would spend most of my time holed up in my room reading stories (like Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and Captain Underpants) and trying my shaky hand at writing. When I was eight or nine, I began a comic book series about a superhero named Lord Guy, who had the powers of flight and super-strength and could defeat any bad guy without so much as a flick of his pinky, and by the time I turned 12, I had written my very first (and very bad) series of poems about love (as if I knew what it meant at so young an age) and penned a number of short stories that tackled every subject from being a kid in the late 2000s to living as a soldier in ancient Rome (with anachronisms abound; I had Plebeian citizens eating hamburgers and steak fries).
My Foray into French
My first year of junior high school, I enrolled in an elementary French class purely because I liked how the language sounded. Over the year, I would not only become obsessed with the French language and culture, but would study so much outside of class (watching French YouTube videos and films on my laptop) that, by the time I reached high school, my spoken French accent sounded like a native’s. My passion continued to deepen into my junior summer of high school, when I applied and was accepted to a six-week abroad program in Paris, where I had my first few glugs of alcohol and almost ate a baggie of Amsterdam truffles with friends. Fast-forward to today, and I’ve visited the country six times, most recently to teach English to students in a small French town called Montbrison (sadly, this seven-month trip was cut short by the spread of the coronavirus).
Climbing, Climbing, Climbing…
When I was sixteen, I read the late Michael Crichton’s powerful memoir, Travels, one of whose chapters is dedicated to the author’s ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro. I was so inspired by his account of the journey that I asked my father if he’d like to to climb it. He said yes, and over the summer we flew to Tanzania and plodded up and down the mountain’s brutal scree slopes, agreeing, as we left, that we wanted to complete more climbs. There was something about the adrenaline rush — and the opportunity to bond with each other — that demanded more than one excursion. To date (I’m now almost 23), he and I have climbed seven mountains, three of which (Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Elbrus, and Mount Kosciuszko) comprise the Seven Summits, or the highest mountain on each continent. I’ve documented each climb in both journal and short-story form, and I plan to do the same on future excursions.
Connection
My passion is, and has always been, connection (and, more generally, language). There is something so beautiful and important about communicating with other people, and I feel like writing is one of the purest forms to do so. Throughout my life, I’ve continually returned to writing and spreading ideas in order to deepen my understanding of people all over the world, and I’m eternally grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given to actualize this love of mine.
This, I think, is why my recent foray into Medium has felt so wonderful. I’ve written a lot of articles in the last few months — many of which have been published in Illumination, this absolutely amazing and unique creative enclave — that have reached hundreds of people willing to share their own experiences and world views, and have also read dozens of articles by fellow writers who are so full of talent and empathy I’m surprised they haven’t exploded. I must admit, too, that I haven’t had more fun writing or reading in years (or, perhaps, ever).
I think that’s all I have to say for now. But you can expect a lot from me in the future.
Stay safe, everyone, and keep writing, reading, and loving.
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