We recently had the chance to connect with Corey Croft and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Corey, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What are you chasing, and what would happen if you stopped?
I am, have been, and foresee myself for the rest of my life, chasing a reality where I am able to dedicate myself solely to writing. To reach a place financially where I don’t have to work another job, and am able to concentrate solely on storytelling and poetry.
It’s not a quest for wealth, status, or prestige of any kind. It’s the ability to put myself in a position where I can take a chance and see if my writing career is able to stand on its own stems and carry me. Us. Without needing any other gigs to supplement my passion and fund my day-to-day life.
If I stopped, I die. By my hand or by the essence slowly draining from my veins and shell until I dry up and turn to dust. There is little else that I find amusing, challenging or entertaining beyond the craft. I’m not interested in anything that is unable to relate back to storytelling. There isn’t much that brings me the high or the joy that writing does. Without art, there’s an emptiness, the succumbing to loneliness, a loss of identity, and then death.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Corey Croft and I write books and poetry. Sometimes short stories. That hasn’t happened in a while. I run an independent publishing house called Fly Pelican Press. It’s more of a publishing apartment. It’s actually more a publishing old detective’s desk that a co-worker gave me/wanted the hell out of his crib, and a coffee table that look’s heavier than it is, or the other way around.
I write because I can’t draw or sing and am far too nervous to act, but need to release the build-up of thoughts, emotions and sludge-link grease out of my skull. Art, therapy, prolonging the diagnosis of some small-nefarious ailments that are running around the attic like ghosts unchecked. Take your pick. I have to do it. It’s not a choice. If I don’t, it hurts. Like a sting or a burn. Or waking up buried alive.
I am impatient and thought that I would be censured if I sent my work to other publishers. I don’t think it’s edgy, or over the top in any direction. I think it’s honest. Back then… I think it was also a lot of ego. And impatience. So, when you read a book from FPP, it’s well-edited with all the guts and sinew still preserved as it was intended. The staff is one person who mans the cockpit of the aforementioned desks with a couple of caring, patient and talented people who help keep ashes from caking on the lampshadesnand blotting out the sun.
That’s wrong. The lampshades were thrown away from being to dusty and ash-caked. That was years ago.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
I believe that honesty is a double-edged sword. It can do harm to, and help, in a relationship. Sometimes both and sometimes in the same relationship. It’s a wild, precarious thing that people perceive differently when standing on opposing sides. We don’t all see the same moon. Some are red, some are white. The statue looks grotesque from one angle, or in some light, just as it can be a resplendent work of art from another perspective. There’s personal taste and background knowledge as well. What may be an ugly hunk of marble to you one day, may be awe-inspiring a year later. And vice versa.
There is the relationship of honesty between two people, and that has to be juggled with how honest a person is within themselves. About themselves, with and in their life. Perception, again, is a wild, cagey wolf. Who you are and who someone believes you are, both in earnest and with honesty, can be as two chemicals which, when mixed in a vial, can become corrosive. Being honest with someone can injure them. For some cats being honest with themselves can feel damn-near fatal (I know this first-hand). But, in time, if there is growth and reflection, those moments of honesty can can return and act as pivotal moments in one’s life.
It may rock you in the moment, but in time, with a sober lens, those painful words may be the guiding thread to finding a person again, and more importantly, becoming a better you.
What’s something you changed your mind about after failing hard?
It might not get better.
Life may not have a happy ending.
It may not even offer you daisies on the path. It may be a cold, brutal and ultimately pointless exercise that devours your youth and slices away all optimism and hope, aging you quicker than sunlight and jade you in the process.
The things that worked for others may no longer work for you. Or they may be lies the whole time. The avenues to success may be cauterized and boarded-up. The lack of a plan b, or c, can be the funcrusher on a lovely day with your partner or niece. There may be no silver-lining. Persevering may feel like torture. The motivation and ability to enjoy small (very, very small, infinitissimal) victories may feel like nothing, or sardonic, a bitter taste for all the defeats, and be brushed from the shoulder like gnats, disregarded entirely, unable to offer even two tears for the bucket.
It may not get better. Failure may not only be an option, but a likelihood. You might not succeed. Talent, effort, dedication, prayer, tens of thousands of dollars on pub and marketing, grand intentions, and a good team may not be enough. Continuing may be a fool’s errand performed by the most hard-headed and idiotic of rubes. An uphill battle where what flows downstream are words I can’t use here. And so, we continue.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
I used to believe that talent has the power to overcome all boundaries. That originality will eventually shine through in the murkiest of waters and be recognized for its pearly brilliance. That dedication, authenticity, and a steadfast, resolute character provides the stamina and fortitude to fight the long battle and see its triumph at some point.
I don’t anymore.
I don’t believe any of those, save for dedication, which can also be called perseverance. I don’t believe in luck. I wish I did. Maybe one day, I will. But, I do believe that you can’t get anywhere if you’re not out there with your thumb out. And, even the most unfortunate can be rewarded at intervals.
I suppose it was naivety and the hope talking in a drunk-on-microplastics stupor that had me believing that meritocracy and a borderline-psychotic work ethic was enough. I’ve seen enough to know that money, networking, rightplace/righttime, and, well, pretty much anything else but raw, ungirdled talent is what pushes someone to the zenith. And that is not speaking of myself. Many artists who I have know, observed, and am a fan of, have seen their careers in art stunted for reasons that we can explain, yet never truly sleep ok with. For not following trends, for being at the forefront and being unable to market their work quick enough. For reasons that an outside observer will gladly tell you about.
Things change so quickly, I’d like to think that a straight line, blistering cannonball of genuine, quality work will eventually find a door. Be the hour that chimes twice, at least once, in their life. But, nah… At this point, with the fast foodification of art, the skull duggery mimicry, the unchecked plagiarism, and reliance on both the good ol’ and the new ‘n cheap… it’s worrisome.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
I don’t know. And that’s why I liked this questions. Because I don’t know. Anything, really. But I also don’t know, and can’t fathom, the depth at which people understand, feel, emote, internalize, love, hate, hurt.
I feel as though we are conditioned to rattle off a nice-sounding answer when asked a question. Perhaps as a veil for how we truly feel, perhaps for a lack of engagement with the question itself. We want to come off a certain way, socially, to not be ostracized, or to fit in to a group we desire membership. What I do know is I’m not Professor X or Jean Grae. I can’t read minds. I can doubt authenticity, but I can’t go into someone’s guts and finger the files of their heart and soul. They may, even if they don’t show or elude to it, greatly. To a surprising degree. And perhaps, not know or be able to articulate or even let it out. About a massive range of things. Maybe everything. They may seem stoic, stubborn, simple, or showy. But, who can say how they truly feel? Especially if they can’t or are unwilling?
Every one of those adjectives I used may be a shield, a defence mechanism, or a dearth of self-knowledge or courage to be themselves. I can’t judge a cat for that. I mean, I may immediately, but later on… Look, how often does the phrase ‘the person you least suspect’ or the feeling of golly, well darn, I didn’t know you/he/she/they felt that way, happen?
I don’t think I’m special in any way other that I’m me and no one else is. I’m not particularly empathetic or intelligent. Wisdom is not something, as most things, for a person to gauge within themselves or claim. None of this is humility, it’s an honesty that comes with having my cheeks reddened and egg painted on my mug more times than I’d care to admit. I have been wrong so many times I don’t even try to be right anymore. Everyone has the capacity to know, feel, understand, and contemplate those moments and event that we all share. The only unique thing we possess is our own experiences and how we chop them up inside. We only have so many words and combinations of words to describe how we feel.
So, I don’t know. Life, humans, they’re mysterious. Ugly, beautiful, amazing and gross. Weird, absurd, abstract and a necessary evil. I don’t understand either of them, life or humans. I’m trying to understand me. I hope that with my work, they can understand me, too. Even if a little. And maybe that helps them understand themselves a little better, with the words that I choose to braid together.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://coreycroftauthor.com/
- Instagram: coreycroftauthor
Image Credits
Rocky Dombowsky, Elora Kae, Teagan Vincze, Joshua Neufeld
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