Year in Review 2022: Island profile — Amy Zavatto, new editor of southforker magazine

Here’s a look back at a profile we published of Amy Zavatto this year.

Amy Zavatto is the Content Director for the East End’s newest lifestyle magazine, called southforker, so she does a lot of writing and reading.

When it comes to novels, she has an eccentric practice. “When I start a new book, I open to the last page and read the last paragraph. Some people think that’s horrible, that you’re spoiling the story. I think it’s more about whetting your appetite … there’s all this adventure and wonder and unknown that you’ll experience on your way there. Not to be a big, fat cliché, but it’s always about the journey.”

Amy’s own journey started on Shelter Island where her family moved when she was a baby. Her father bought an acre in 1965 on Baldwin Road with $10 down and a handshake, and in 1970 the whole family, sisters Linda, Janet and Laura, mother Virginia, and father Michael, moved from East Rockaway and opened a market on West Neck Road.

“I can’t say enough good things about growing up here,” Amy said. “I am a direct product of very good parents and a very good school. My teachers were excellent and they wanted you to be excellent.”

Wendy Clark, an elementary school English teacher, kindled her writing instincts. “When I was 7 or 8, she told me, you are a good writer and you should stick to it,” Amy said, “and the teacher who really made that difference for me was Mrs. McNally.”

High school English teacher Patricia McNally helped Amy discover literature, and to see that writing was her vocation. Her first paid writing job was for the Shelter Island Reporter covering school sports.

She graduated in the Class of 1986, got an associate degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1988, but realized she needed a bachelor’s degree, even though she couldn’t afford it.

Living in Rockaway with her older sister, Amy commuted to NYU, found a job at Matthew Bender, a legal publisher, which helped pay her tuition, and was finally able to complete her degree in journalism in 1992, after taking time to go home and care for her mother who was dying of cancer.

It was around the time of her mother’s death that Amy met Daniel Marotta, working at Matthew Bender while getting his law degree at Fordham. ”Dan thought I was cute but snooty,” she remembered.

Not long after he left the company and got his first job as a lawyer, a nor’easter closed the city down one afternoon and Amy found herself in a bar with friends from the office and Dan, who had just passed the bar exam and was feeling good.

He had a ska band at the time called “The New York Citizens,” and Amy can’t forget his great opening line, “I don’t think I have you on the mailing list for my band. Are you dating anybody?”

They’ve been married now for 25 years.

In the 1990s, Amy worked in book publishing, including a stint with The Complete Idiots Guides, where she commissioned Bill Grimbol, the pastor of the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church, to write The Complete Idiots Guide to Spirituality for Teens, published in 2000.

But book publishing seemed far away from her childhood dream of being a writer, and was less and less satisfying to her.

“My husband said I should quit my job and try freelance writing for six months,” she said. “He’s a good man.”

A full-time freelance writer for 22 years, she started as a food writer, working for four years writing for the Edible magazines, serving as a deputy editor for Edible Manhattan, and for Edible East End. She also wrote frequently for Hamptons, Food & Wine, Time-Out New York and Gotham. She began to write more about wine and spirits, and got a certificate from the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust to deepen her knowledge. With Tony DiDio, she wrote “Renaissance Guide to Wine and Food Pairings,” and other books about wine and spirits.

“I love wine, food and cooking, and I love telling the stories of the people who do things,” Amy said.

She’s “over the moon” to be the first director of a new lifestyle publication for the Times-Review Media Group, southforker.

“I think the Hamptons has so many wonderful stories to tell,” she said. “And there are a lot of talented people out there to write for me. I’d like to do some mentoring of writers. I hope I can bring some new voices, people like me.”

Life is good, she said. “How wonderful to be a story teller in a place that I love where I grew up and that formed me as a writer.”

Lightning Round —Amy Zavatto

What do you always have with you? A plastic cream-colored comb that belonged to my mother. I keep her with me. She had long, dark, brown hair.

Favorite place on Shelter Island? Menhaden Lane.

Favorite place not on Shelter Island? Lecce, Italy.

When was the last time you were elated?  When I shook hands with Andrew Olsen and accepted the job as southforker content director.

What exasperates you? When people are unkind or lack empathy.

When was the last time you were afraid? The beginning of COVID. Sitting on my couch listening to Cuomo say over 700 people died in one day in New York. 

What is the best day of the year on Shelter Island? The day after Thanksgiving. It’s quiet, everyone is kind of sleepy.

Favorite movie or book? A toss-up between ‘You Must Remember This,’ by Joyce Carol Oates and ‘To the Lighthouse,’ by Virginia Woolf.

Favorite food? My grandmother, Teresa Zavatto’s eggplant polpette.

Most respected elected official? Shirley Chisholm.