We recently connected with Tyler Carroll and have shared our conversation below.

Tyler, appreciate you joining us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

Dead Reckoning is a land navigation term that describes finding yourself on a map based on a previously known location. In short, it means to know where you are from where you’ve been. That’s a physical process, though; we go through mental and emotional processes as well. I knew our stories, the narrative we tell ourselves, was the product in which we find ourselves in those capacities. But most of us don’t know how to tell our stories in the most articulate or entertaining ways. Therefore, my partner and I founded a publishing company focusing on education and authenticity. Specifically and currently, we serve the veteran community. There are so many stories from so many walks of life that don’t get the opportunity to share, and we want to shine a light on those. We want to represent the misrepresented.
There are stigmas that follow the veteran community. On one end of the spectrum, people praise everything veterans do, placing them on some form of pedestal, taking everything they say as the gospel; we’re perceived as these untouchable heroes. On the other end, people proceed with caution, thinking they’re approaching a ticking time bomb, dealing with people struggling with PTSD; we’re perceived as broken. I believe most of our community lies somewhere in the middle, and we, at Dead Reckoning Collective hope to change that narrative by sharing stories and poetry straight from the source.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I was a medic in the Army, and once completing my contract, I became a firefighter/paramedic for a department in the suburbs of Dallas, TX. Upon transitioning out of the military, I had a story to tell, but didn’t have the tools or platform to do so. I started a blog site with my business partner, Keith Dow, highlighting the struggles of transitioning out of the military, and we wanted to shine a light on successful transition stories to help provide some guidance and hope for other service members. We realized the limitations of a blog site and decided we wanted to publish longer forms of written content. Therefore, my business partner and I co-authored the publication’s first book, Fact & Memory, which was a collection of poetry. The reception was incredible, and lead us to the idea of putting together an anthology of poetry comprised of veterans and/or active duty service members. That book, In Love… &War: The Anthology of Poet Warriors, was filled with over hundred poems written by over three dozen authors, and it became a #1 New Release on Amazon. To this day, we’ve continued our relationship with nearly all of those poets/authors, and have developed even more relationships stemming from those. Some of those initial authors have since written and published their own collections of poetry and/or full length novels, and some of them have taught a creative writing course for us. We’ve created and nourish a community of highly creative people that just so happen to have served in the military. And while these interactions started in a business capacity, we’re grateful to call nearly everyone we’ve ever worked with a friend. We’re honored to have been trusted with these people’s creative expressions, and we intentionally include them in every step of publication process: to include, cover art, formatting, marketing, and events. It’s a team effort. We truly believe that if one of us succeeds than we all succeed.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My friend, Theodore Glende, approached me while we were in Afghanistan. I wrote thoughts and reflections about our deployment in a green canvas supply journal. He told me he kept a similar journal and that we should combine them after we returned home and possibly make a book out of them for the guys in our platoon or our future kids. Unfortunately, a week later, he took his last breath in my hands as I tried to treat the wounds he sustained after being hit by an RPG. Not to be morbid or anything, but in my career fields, I’ve learned that life is fragile and death is inevitable. That doesn’t depress me anymore; in fact, it does the opposite. I’m motivated by the idea that each moment is valuable, and I have some say regarding how important or insignificant they are. The meaning and perceptions we attach to ideas or stories are so subjective, and I find that intriguing. I know that my experiences and lens to view them are limited, so I know I can learn from others by listening to them and having a dialogue with them. Open and honest discourse is the only way to understand and be understood.
I hope that my writing and the written works DRC publishes provide interesting and necessary content to open up that honest discourse about what’s happening in our world, even if it’s just the niche community I operate in.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Most of the creative process is done in isolation. It’s a lonely endeavor that nearly drives a person into madness. You pick apart every idea you’ve ever had and examine moments of your life and determine if they hold substance to what you’re trying to create. You dissect your mind, heart, and soul, leaving you vulnerable to infectious ideas, behaviors, and morals, hoping that something worthwhile waits for you on the other side. Your foundation is unsteady, but you believe you’re building something stronger, and at the end, you take a step back and pry at the integrity of it all, ensuring collapse isn’t imminent. With all that effort, you’re left staring at something marvelous, at least from your perspective, but now others can judge it and determine its worth at a larger external scale. And you have to convince yourself that none of that matters, regardless if the reception of your work is positive or negative because either one can go to your head. You did the best you could, and that’s good enough.
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative is enduring the process itself because we were born to do so.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.deadreckoningco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylerjamescarroll/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TylerJamesCarroll
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadreckoningcollective3348

Image Credits
Brad Hutcheson