Dan Conti Book Signing

New Castle native Dan Conti will read from and sign copies of his new book, “Nittany Lion,” at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 27. The event is free and open to the public.

About Nittany Lion

It’s a time when the country seems hopelessly divided, torn apart by a war overseas, economic distress and political corruption. A young family is coping with tragedy, a serious illness, and a future that appears frought with peril. It is 1970 and Francis Rosselli is coming home from Vietnam.

Nittany Lion is a novel by retired broadcast journalist Dan Conti that tells the story of a decorated veteran battling things he can’t control and those he can and unsure if he’s always able to tell the difference between the two.

Set in the hills of central Pennsylvania, it’s a tale that revolves around characters and events in the small town of Nollville near the Penn State University campus. A young widow, her grown son, and an eight-year-old daughter who loves basketball, struggle to make sense of a world in constant turmoil.

Though Nittany Lion is a work of fiction, many of the things that stitch the story together actually happened. They include Penn State’s challenging 1970 football season, the ill fate of the school’s mascot, and other world and national events.

About the Author

Dan Conti attended Union Elementary School in New Castle, Pennsylvania, until his family moved to Ohio in 1964. His parents, Ray Conti, and the former Willa Goodge, were both graduates of Union High School. Conti went to high school in Middletown, Ohio and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1978.

Conti spent most of his career as a broadcast journalist in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, reporting, producing, and anchoring the news. He is the winner of more than 35 news reporting awards from the Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana Associated Press. Nittany Lion is Conti’s first novel. He has written two other books, POWs in 2006 and A Reporter’s Notebook and Other Stuff in 2017. He lives in Morehead, Kentucky.