Meet Samuel Plauche

We recently connected with Samuel Plauche and have shared our conversation below.

Samuel, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

My work ethic came from a want to be completely independent. From a young age, I wanted to do things my way and act on everything I wanted to act on. To grant myself that freedom, I knew I would have to carve out my own space. I got a job first on gooey duck beds in Nisqually, Washington where I would travel early in the morning to sift mud from the shark nets that protected the gooey ducks from predators, and drag them onto the barge sitting in the Puget Sound. I mean, this job sucked, but I did it to get my own money, to be less dependent on family, and to do what I wanted with the cash I had labored for. As I have gotten older, this need to carve out my independence, and to carve out my own space in the world, has matured. I’m no longer some punk sixteen year old kid who thinks everyone else can be damned, but I still have that want for total independence and to make a unique space. Now, rather than just for me, it has become a space I want to create for everyone I love, and a place where we can all act independently from the various restraints in our adult lives and act with genuine intent.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I like to do a lot. Maybe its a symptom of the work ethic mentioned earlier, but I need to stay busy-especially creatively. I write novels, my book As The Rain Falls you can currently buy on the Raging Opossum Press website. I write a lot of poetry which goes out to the public (and some just for me). I run Raging Opossum Press, mentioned before. It’s a publishing house and arts journalist press. We do a monthly magazine highlighting various artists from Chicago as well as publishing books. It started as a way for me to freely publish my work and actually keep the money as publishing houses have gotten so predatory, but it has quickly snowballed into something bigger, which is good. We are soon to publish an amazing collection of short stories by Chicago author Adam Galanski-DeLeon called The Laughter of Hyenas At Bay, and my second novel, BANDIT. Keep an eye out for them.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

This is a good question. When looking at qualities, I will always preach how far kindness and confidence can get you. As unfortunate as it may be, you are only one person. If you try to do anything solo, you will fail. Approach people with kindness and good faith, and they will want to help you. We can work together through kindness and all build amazing things that can work in conjunction, like a garden. Think about the community of kindness as you enter into an endeavor. If you are unpleasant and rude to people, people won’t want to work with you, and you’ll be screwed. If you can lift up others trying to do what you’re doing, then you’ll go far because they will do the same for you.

As I said, confidence is also wildly important. If you stand around kicking dirt about how you’re not good at this and not good at that, well, then everyone’s going to think you’re bad at whatever those things may be. However, if you walk into a room sure of yourself, sure of your ability, and proud of what you have accomplished, then people are much more inclined to listen to you. You’ve got to remember that everyone is busy. No one you’re just meeting has time to ease your doubts, so be confident and swallow those back.

This may be a roundabout way to answer “what areas of knowledge you should know?” What you should get real comfortable with is what you don’t know. Before you start anything, assess your faults and where you lack skills. Then, you can go to people and see if they can aid you in patching those areas up. At this point, you should have been being kind to everyone and oozing confidence, so people will be more inclined to help you overcome your faults. Just, for the love of God, listen to what they say. Everything is moot if you can’t listen to someone when they give you a critique. Don’t let it ruin your vision, but take it to heart.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

I’m answering this with the lens of “which book has had the most impact on you as a person?” It would be Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. It’s an out there book. It’s about three individuals, one in Seattle, one in New Orleans, and one in Paris, trying to make a new scent for a revolutionary perfume. Then there’s this story about these two immortals trying to keep a god alive as they stroll across the earth. It gets weird, like I said, but the message of the book is to take things less seriously, take life less seriously, and have some fun. Yes, you should work hard, but don’t ever forget to play. Do what you know is right and true, do what you think is fun, and everything kind of just…falls into place. I read that book when I had just graduated college with an art degree and loads of debt, stressed beyond belief over the decision I had just made and thinking I had thrown my whole future into jeopardy. I read that book and was able to take a deep breath and remember to just not take life so damn seriously. With that mentality, I’ve been able to relax a bit and focus on what I value as important-from seeing loved ones to starting my own publishing press. Now, whenever I feel unbearably stressed, I read a few pages of it and calm down. That book should be required reading for anyone in their early twenties.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ragingopossumpressllc.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ragingopossumpress/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/

Image Credits

Sam Tucker, Adriana Perez, Alex Milne, Sarah Hobson