From Diction to Deadlines: How a Fordham Poetry Student Broke Into Journalism

Jake Eraca, FCLC '24

By Ava Peabody

When I first met Jake Eraca, FCLC '24, he was having a whirlwind fall semester. The fall of 2021 has been only the second semester physically on campus for the English major, as he spent the first half of his freshman year of college at home in Poughkeepsie as a result of the pandemic. His fall has been filled with writing award-winning personal essays and zealous opinion pieces about political issues. Writing has long been a passion of Eraca's, who entered college knowing he wanted to study English (and whom I met in an English class). His recent success, however, has revolved around his breakout from his mainstays of poetry and creative writing into the realm of journalism.

For all his love of English, I was surprised to learn that for much of high school, Eraca wanted to be a neuroscientist. He discovered an enthusiasm for science while working on a science project focused on turtle tracking, and loved the biology classes he took. However, once he reached senior year of high school and began thinking about his next steps in education, he realized he did not want to set off down a path of several years of medical school. When choosing his classes for senior year, he pivoted, electing at the last minute to take nearly a full schedule of English courses on the basis of his casual enjoyment of literature and creative writing. He signed up for as many electives as he could find, including poetry, African American literature, and children's literature.

Eraca's interest in English had been sparked by his junior year English teacher, Ms. Soi, whose encouragement left a mark on him. "I'll never forget her. She just really engaged the class. I remember I was always answering questions, and I came to have a reputation of being really good at English." When Eraca wrote some poetry on a whim, he felt comfortable enough to let Ms. Soi look it over. She liked it so much that she asked for more, and "it just kind of kept going from there," he said. Her support led him to take his school's poetry elective course, where he learned the elements of the form like rhythm and anaphora. Eraca latched onto the intricacies of poetry because of its similarity to his other love: music. He played jazz bass, was in the marching band, and participated in Philharmonia. He valued these creative outlets both separately and as a pair: "It was interesting to see how poetry tied into music and how that connection helped me get creative."

Eraca's positive experience in his high school English classes evolved into a plan to study creative writing in college. But then, just as he was gearing up to come to Fordham, COVID hit during the second semester of his senior year. "When COVID happened, I felt dead inside for a year because I got really stunted creatively. It was really sad because I have a document of all my poetry written in high school, and you can see that the day COVID started, it was gone. It stopped."

However, Eraca found himself in English classes at Fordham that helped him through that time of artistic inhibition. His favorite was Texts and Contexts: About Women, By Women, taught by Vlasta Vranjes. He felt the class helped him not only gain perspectives about literature, but valuable insight about the experience of womanhood. ​​"I thought that class was so interesting because as somebody who's gay, I've always been one of the girls, but I don't know anything about the girls."

The new setting of college classes, even though it was over Zoom, helped motivate him to start writing again. "It was really like, Oh my God, I remember why I like doing this." He also notes that the core classes required by Fordham have augmented his writing: "A lot of the core has been relevant to informing a better perspective on my writing. I think the more well rounded you are, the better your specific writing is."

Beyond his high school and college English classes, he credits some of his current flourishing to his mom, noting with his signature flair that "Jen is a girlboss." Eraca's mother instilled a sense of motivation and enthusiasm in him from the beginning, helping him learn to tackle big projects without feeling overwhelmed by them. He maintains he "would not have been nearly as successful in the college application process or anything like that without her." He relishes the positive reinforcement his mom gave him and his siblings. "My mom has always created an environment where I want to succeed. She's framed it like I have the potential, and I'm in the driver's seat." His mother, who is an education and writing professional, also helped him learn how to write well: "She will cut [my writing] to pieces in the best way possible."

His mom also provided the inspiration for the very article in the Fordham Observer which would make such a splash. In September of 2021, amidst the first weeks of his sophomore year, Eraca decided to write a piece about his mom's experience with cancer, and the immense benefits of her choice to keep her young children in the loop about her condition. The piece was Eraca's first foray into publishing his writing, but his lack of experience did not hinder him at all — the piece trended on the Observer website, and it was even featured on the Best of SNO (School Newspapers Online).

Having spent the end of his senior year and the beginning of his college freshman year over Zoom, Eraca said he had felt he was "going through the motions, like I wasn't really making an impact. I feel like I didn't identify with the school, or with my role in it." But being featured on Best of SNO was something tangible that "was really validating for me. Now I feel like I've really done something." The pleasant surprise of seeing how much his piece resonated helped Eraca return to his roots: "I wrote the cancer article, and I was like, wow, and I started writing poetry again. I felt like I was recovering."

Although his prior writing experience had been in a different format, Eraca seemed to take to journalism instantly. The tools he learned from his high school and college English courses allowed him to transition seamlessly into a new type of writing, including his method for finding topics to cover. Similar to his strategy for writing poetry, his inspiration for opinion pieces have so far come from issues he is passionate about: "I think about what makes me and other people angry." He has written about undeniably controversial topics like LGBTQ+ privilege and the policing of NYC parks, but he doesn't mind delving into contentious topics. "I feel like controversy is the result of an argument done right."

Eraca's head-first plunge into journalism has paid off. As one of the Opinions Editors for the Fordham Observer, I recognized his skills as a reader and writer, and I asked him to join the team as an Assistant Editor for the Opinions section. "My experience at the Observer has been all-around positive," he said. "It's an environment of mostly Gen Z people, which lifts a lot of barriers, and it feels easy to communicate with people." He also noted that being on a staff of young writers and editors "removes a lot of the anxiety" that can come with pitching ideas and discussing work with more seasoned people like faculty and career professionals.

When I asked what Eraca imagines the future might hold, I was once again surprised by his answer. "I want to write for the video game League of Legends. Their lore is so well-written, with this whole universe of maps and 128 characters who each have their own backstory. The world-building is so impressive, it's like a novel." His dream is to write for the game he loves so much, and he wants a degree that will help him learn to write for that digital medium and others like it. After college, he plans to apply to work at Riot, the video game developer and publisher which is known for its meticulous, long-term focus on elaborate projects including League of Legends, for which it is responsible. In the video game industry, where most people want to do STEM jobs like coding or engineering, Eraca wants to bring his writing skills to the table. "I think it's the most intense, creative thing. So that's the goal."

Jake Eraca first wrote for The Observer in Professor Elizabeth Stone’s ENGL 3019 "Writing for Publication" course, offered in the new "Public and Professional Writing Minor." Prof. Stone will again teach the course in Fall 2022, and Prof. Lenny Cassuto will teach it in Spring 2023. Click here for more on the new "Public and Professional Writing Minor."