Coming to Las Vegas: A true tale of sex, drugs & Sin City in the 70's

Written by Carolyn V. Hamilton

Narrated by Coleen Marlo

Carolyn V. Hamilton arrives in Las Vegas in 1973 to join a circus. When that job doesn't work out, she opens the new MGM Grand Hotel/Casino as a cocktail waitress. This turns out to be more involved than a nice Lutheran girl from Seattle would think: parties, stealing, sex, drinking and drugs are the main entertainment for a bored crew of casino employees. Some waitresses date culinary union bosses, who have their own high drama of payoffs, fights for control, fire bombings and an 18-day culinary union strike. Each story told in this memoir-of the Martin Scorsese "Casino" era of Las Vegas-is true, and many are humorous as well as outrageous.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Nov 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781977335982

Carolyn V. Hamilton

My first creative writing class was in my junior year in high school. I loved it so much (thank you, Miss Dearborn) that I repeated it in my senior year.Forty years passed before I wrote any more short stories, poetry, or fiction.In the meantime, I wrote just about every kind of advertising copy you can imagine: brochures, traditional print ads, speeches, radio & television commercials, direct mail letters, white papers and news releases.From 1999 to 2001 I served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Suriname, South America. My assignment was “rural community development.” To tell the truth, I had a lot of down time in the village, where I laid happily in my hammock and read a lot of novels. Finally it struck me: why not write one?Ever since I’d met the editor of Romantic Times on a cruise to Bermuda, I’d thought about writing a romance. After all, what could be easier? I thought.I plunged into writing my eco-adventure romance, Hard Amazon Rain.Little did I know that romance is perhaps the toughest genre to write. Those romance readers have real strong ideas about what they want and what they don’t want in their stories!In Suriname, I was intrigued by the story of Elisabeth Samson, the first black woman in the country in the 18th century to get legal permission from the Dutch to marry white. I started out to tell her story in third person, but along the way this “voice” emerged. I have no idea where it came from.Elisabeth Samson, Forbidden Bride was published by a small press in 2004. It subsequently created a furor in Suriname, where I was publicly accused of “stealing (their) black culture”.....and that’s a whole different story for another time.By that time I was hooked on writing books. I’ve learned a lot along the way, book/tape/seminar/conference junkie that I am.Where do I get my story ideas?I’ve been blessed in my life with jobs and adventures that have taken me to many countries in the world and led me to meet a lot of interesting people. I take two or three of them, put them in a bottle, shake it up, and ask myself, “What if?”I’m sure you’ve also found yourself on occasion in a situation where you thought, “You just can’t make this stuff up!”For the record, I was born and raised in Seattle, Washington--hence the “webbed” feet-- and spent most of my adult life and career in Las Vegas, Nevada.In Los Angeles in the 60s I got an A.A. degree in Commercial Art from Los Angeles Trade Technical College, and began my career as a Graphic Designer in the world of “Mad Men.” In the 80s I finished a B.A. degree in Liberal Arts at Antioch Seattle.Among other things, I’ve been a secretary, sold radio time, owned an ad agency, won a bunch of awards for both advertising and community service, and am a Vintage Playboy Bunny.Besides writing fiction, I have an internet magazine for women over 50 doing fun things: www.adventuress-travel-magazine.comEnough about me....what do you like to read?You can e-mail me any time at [e-mail]’d love to hear from you.