Author Spotlight Peter Castrillo

Welcome! Please introduce yourself.

Peter Costello, AKA, Peter Castrillo

1. When did you start writing? I liked to write as a child, no matter what it concerned,

for fun, school, or work. I started writing my story when I retired at age 65. But, had it in my head to do for fifty years. The actual writing took about two years, and I used Friesen Press for my Publisher.

2. What motivates you to write?

I have always had an opinion on most social political ideas, policy topics, and would write for my own understanding of subject, graduating in Political Science.

3. What genre do you write in and what made you chose this particular genre?

I wrote this story In True Crime and Memoirs, because that is the area the story falls within.

4. What is your goal in writing?

My goal is to tell a good story that the reader enjoys. Make the reader not be able to put the book down because they want to see what happens with either the characters, or the plot. I like to write relevant dialogue, that releases emotional feelings. But, my very main goal is to entertain myself with a passionate hobby.
Do you have dreams where your writing should take you? Yes, dreams are everything to a writer, thinker, or ordinary person. Then, you organize those dreams into a plan of action.

 

5. Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and if yes, how do you deal with it?

Yes, I’ve had writer’s block, and stop writing for a while, I need the inspiration and passion to want to write.

6. What advice would you like to give new, hopeful authors?

Sit and write it for yourself. Paint the picture you see and feel, and hope others read and feel it the way you intended.

7. Please, tell us about your work.

Vegas Vendetta is a story about my years from 18 to 25, after growing up in a period at the end of World War II among the Italian immigrants who came through Ellis Island and practiced their lifestyle here in America. The state of the World and especially America after winning World War II was monumental to this 50’s generation. People were beyond proud, deservingly boastful, and confident in living life, knowing it was a new world coming, and it brought in the sixties drug, sex, rock and roll which were formative years for me. Las Vegas was built and controlled by gangsters, thugs, and killers, and that’s who I hustled for a living, and never considered myself one of them. I thought of it as a ‘Huckleberry Finn 1960’ adventure.

Thank you for being my guest. It was such a pleasure to have you here!!

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About Peter:

Author Bio

The author grew up in a very narrow time period of social change that was brought on when the war ended. The large influx of immigration that was happening at Ellis Island that allowed the criminal element to enter and flourish with the daily numbers games, parlays, horse racing, and other non-violent crimes was a boon to the economy. Everybody in my neighborhood gambled and betting was a sport that gave hope of winning cash. It was common and accepted to play games of chance, and it was sometimes a relative, neighbor, or trusted family friend who booked the bet for you. It didn’t matter that it was turned in to a fella who gave it to another fella, who drove it to Brooklyn to another fella. We trusted the source all the way up the line and felt they were family, after all they came from Calabria, Naples or Florence….

Website: https://pacostel3.wixsite.com/petercastrillo
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/PeterCastrilloVegasVendetta/

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Peter’s Book:

Book Description

IT’S THE 1960S. War is raging in Southeast Asia, and the draft board is looming over every young man’s shoulder, but recent high school graduate Peter Castrillo has a plan; enroll in college for as long as it takes to get a student deferment…and then head to Vegas! And Vegas is everything he dreamed it would be-parties at Sammy Davis’s place, hanging out at the bar with Elvis, and flirting with Mia Farrow in the elevators. It’s all bank-rolled lavishly by the clever cons that Peter and his pals devise, taking the casinos for a bundle in these low-tech security days. The drugs are plentiful, the girls are wild, and the glittery nights seem to go on forever. But when Peter makes the mistake of a romantic entanglement with the gorgeous trophy-wife of a venal Bulgarian mobster, his Vegas dream turns into a nightmare that he just might not survive. Based on true facts and dished out with equal portions of hilarity and horror, Vegas Vendetta tells one young man’s story of his quest to evade the draft, make money, meet women, and find excitement back in the days when Vegas truly was Sin City….

Buy it here