Cathy Salustri
Cathy Salustri writes about Florida lifestyles and history. Her portfolio includes USA Today, Flamingo Magazine, Visit Florida, regional magazines, the Tampa Bay Times, Creative Loafing, and other Tampa Bay press.
In late 2016, UPF published her travel narrative about retracing the WPA-era driving tours of Florida, Backroads of Paradise, and the New York Times featured it in its travel section. She next wrote Florida Spectacular: Extraordinary Places and Exceptional Lives (UPF, 2024) to remind Floridians exactly how wonderful their state is.
Every week, Cathy Salustri and co-host and Florida author Rick Kilby celebrate Florida travel, history, and culture on their podcast, Florida Spectacular.
Cathy Salustri’s Background
Cathy studied radio and television broadcasting as an undergraduate, earning a BA in Communications from the University of Tampa. She also has an MLA in Florida Studies from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. As a graduate student Cathy studied Florida history and culture under Drs. Gary Mormino and Ray Arsenault. Her research focused on the WPA’s Federal Writer’s Project Guide to the Southernmost State.
Under the guidance of Gary Mormino, Cathy wrote what she calls “possibly the least academic master’s thesis ever,” logging almost 5,000 miles retracing driving tours from that guide, in search of Florida’s forgotten destinations.
From 2003-2015, Cathy Salustri reported on hyperlocal news for one of the final family-owned papers in the state, The Gabber Newspaper. During her tenure at The Gabber, she penned an opinion column, Hard Candy, and wrote a monthly Florida travel piece. For fun (and money) she attended city council meetings and, on several occasions, aggravated elected and appointed officials.
From 2015-2019, Cathy Salustri worked as the arts + entertainment editor of Creative Loafing Tampa.
In June 2020, during the pandemic, Cathy and her husband bought The Gabber Newspaper.
Other than writing…
Cathy Salustri’s non-writing resume includes giving tours at Walt Disney World, ground crew for an aerial banner towing company, kayak tour guide, sailboat crew, and stage managing for professional theater companies. She also works as a private investigator.
Cathy started freelancing after quitting a government job in a self-described “fit of self-respect” in 2003. Except for a brief few years where she thought she might be suited for office work and thusly took the arts & entertainment editor post at Creative Loafing Tampa, she’s freelanced since then.
Photo taken by random driver on US 1, via Cathy Salustri
She lives in Gulfport with her husband, Barry, a neurotic, yet lazy, hound dog, two cats who may or may not have a sugar addiction and, most likely, a frog the cats brought in as a present that no one has discovered yet.
Photo by Cathy Salustri
More Work from Cathy Salustri
Cathy’s currently working on a series of local travel books about Gulfport. She’s also working on a series of pulp fiction novels about a mythical Florida town, Mermaid’s Key, based partially on her time at The Gabber.
Contact Cathy Salustri
You can reach her at cathysalustri@gmail.com, on Instagram (@cathysalustri) or Facebook (@salustricathy), or Threads (@cathysalustri). You can also subscribe to Cathy Salustri’s monthly (well, monthly-ish) newsletter, The Florida Spectacular.