From your About Us page (buried in tiny type at the way bottom of the website), we read all about Anthony Curtis. But we were looking for a little about Deke Castleman too, who's been around as long as we can remember. When and how did he first show up at the Las Vegas Advisor?
Deke first arrived in Las Vegas in 1987 to work on the Las Vegas chapter of the first edition of his travel guide, Nevada Handbook.
Naturally, one of his first stops was at the Gamblers Book Club, where he noticed the six-page Las Vegas Advisor for sale on the counter ($5). He bought it, read it, and besides all the great info he gleaned (especially the Top Ten), he saw that some guy named Anthony Curtis was doing the same kind of writing that he was. He made a cold-call and connected with A.C.; over the next few years, they got together on occasion when Deke blew through for Nevada Handbook promotions and updates and while he was writing the first edition of another guidebook, Compass Las Vegas.
Anthony had ambitions to become a book publisher and Deke had the requisite editing and production skills, having been the editor at another small press throughout the '80s. In late 1991, Deke "applied" to become the book editor at Huntington Press and landed the job. There was no position and no other candidates, so he essentially created the niche for himself and the books started coming (and still are). In addition, his presence helped grow the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter from six pages to 12 (the first 12-pager was the April 1992 issue).
As Deke wrote in a blog post last year, "In all modesty, one reason that the Las Vegas Advisor and Huntington Press have survived, while most gambling periodicals and every single gambling book publishing company have not, is due to the enduring alliance between two dedicated Las Vegas content producers -- Anthony Curtis and myself."
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Larryk
May-14-2018
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VegasVic
May-14-2018
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