Millsboro writer announces self-published collection

Writer Kathryn Conti Salamone of Millsboro recently announced the release of her self-published collection.

With titles like “Make Mine al Dente” and “Summer in the City,” Salamone has brought to life her years growing up in an Italian household in Paterson, N.J., more than 60 years ago.

What started in a four-week memoir writing class at the Rehoboth Beach Historical Society became a steady stream of vignettes written over the last four years. The collection is titled “Sown in Silk City: A Life Rooted in Paterson, New Jersey.”

Soon after Kathy and her husband John moved to Millsboro in 2016 from northern New Jersey, she checked the papers for activities that caught her interest. “When I read about a memoir writing course in Rehoboth, I registered right away,” she said.

After an in-class assignment to write a six-word memoir, her memoir writing took off. “Rae Tyson of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Delaware encouraged me. Discovering an untapped talent in writing creative nonfiction was a happy surprise,” she said.

The result is a collection of stories about being a kid in Paterson, the city Alexander Hamilton founded as a manufacturing center in 1792. “When textiles became Paterson’s primary industry in the late 1800s, it naturally followed that its nickname became ‘Silk City,’” Salamone said. The city thrived on its multinational immigrant population, among whom were her paternal and maternal grandparents, who settled there around 1900.

Salamone credits her sixth-grade teacher with noticing her writing skills. “At first, it was compositions in grammar school, then in high school, the school newspaper, and the yearbook. In college, I studied English literature and then earned my master’s degree,” she said.

Beginning as an associate editor of a trade publication, Salamone later wrote and edited employee publications, created and completed marketing plans, and managed internal and external communications at a multinational healthcare company and at two hospitals in New Jersey. She put her career on hold while raising her three children, but volunteered her writing talents to local organizations and did freelance writing.

Salamone said when her parents married in 1941, her Italian upbringing was set in sauce, so to speak. “I grew up in a loving household where life centered around family and food. My early life became the easiest thing in the world to write about. I have a file of other vignettes I hope to publish in another collection,” she said.

”Sown in Silk City” features vintage photos of Salamone’s family members that capture the Italian American experience. It can be ordered through Amazon as a print version and an eBook on Kindle.