Meet Laura Carney

We had the good fortune of connecting with Laura Carney and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Laura, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
Everything I do is motivated by love and my drive to help people to the best of my ability. I believe that whatever gifts we were born with weren’t given to us so we can compete with others but so we can give where we are needed.

With that philosophy, it is a sin to waste a gift. So I challenge myself to explore and develop my gifts the best I can, and this requires being open to every experience that comes my way.

I also believe that when you are motivated by love for another person or gratitude for being alive, you cannot go astray.

Because I believe this, that pure intentions lead to pure results, I approach novelty with curiosity, not fear. I assume that my life is a collaboration with a higher power, not just me on my own, trying to figure things out. There is a real security in thinking this way. I know that whatever happens, God has me.

I trust that I am safe, I am protected, if I am serving my divine purpose.

If I don’t know what to do next, I ask God to show me.

When you follow your true path, you start to notice doors opening that might not have for someone else. You start to notice things falling into place with no insistence from you. Yes, some skill is involved in making your way, and usually a lot of hard work, but the truth is that if everything is aligned, things begin working out for you—the universe flows with you, not against you. If things are not going this way, I take a beat and examine my motivations a little more closely. And then I adjust.

Whenever what I’m doing is done in a vein of honesty and kindness, in an effort to lift up everyone around me, everything works out just fine.

If my work helps other people in a way that appears successful, it’s because of the energy behind it, and how immediately palpable it is.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m a nonfiction writer—I started in journalism and quickly learned I had a knack for profiles. This shouldn’t have surprised me because I’m also a visual artist, and my specialty in that realm is portraits.

I am fascinated by getting to know people and their inner worlds at a deep level. I think every person is beautiful.

I suppose this is why after years of recapping TV shows about complex anti-heroes (e.g., “Lost,” “Mad Men,” “True Detective”), my first book was about finishing my late father’s bucket list. Mick Carney, the most complex character I’ve known, died in 2003 when he was only 54. He was killed by a 17-year-old distracted driver.

The way he died was obviously very troubling at the time. I was only 25 years old, and nobody can foresee their father’s life ending like this. I struggled with what I viewed as his absence from my life for many years.

But then, 13 years later, around the time I was ready to get married, something shifted…I began to see how all the traditions of a wedding left my story out. I couldn’t have a dance with my father. My father couldn’t walk me down the aisle. On top of this, I was marrying my longtime boyfriend at age 38. We’d been together 13 years, so my dad (blessedly) DID get to meet him, the same week he died. But because I was getting married at 38, popular opinion said it was too late for me to raise a family—or almost too late. And we’d rented an apartment just outside of New York for so long, building a nest for a family seemed unlikely too.

Needless to say, I felt lost. Now that I’d reached this crossroads as a woman, did my biology matter more than my spirit?

So when I said yes to finishing my late father’s uncovered bucket list for him (we had no idea it existed—we discovered it a few months after my wedding), I was making a last-ditch effort at finding a new road map. I’m not sure I would have been brave enough to value my own life, my own choices, and the impact they had on me and on others, if I hadn’t been so willing to take a chance on my father’s dreams.

After a few years of bucket-list-checking and writing a book about it, My Father’s List, I realized that we are built to do this. We aren’t built to meet the status quo—that’s just something people do in order to belong and survive. We are built to make conscious decisions with our lives—whether that means making a smart choice while driving or going after our deepest yearnings and dreams.

We feel our dreams in our hearts. It’s like that for a reason. When people speak about a deeply held truth, they touch their heart. That’s not a coincidence.

Our truest compass in life lives in our chests, not in our heads. And after I learned this, the way I made art only deepened…and it became the guiding force in my life. Whereas previously writing and art were just things I did, so I could tell other people’s stories (I’m also a copy editor for national magazines and top five book publishers, as well as academic publishers, which helps me learn by osmosis), I’m now proud to say that I specialize in helping people tell their OWN stories, to themselves if to no one else.

Everyone has a voice. Everyone has a story to tell. Your life will change in leaps and bounds once you insist on narrating your own. And once you trust the world is guiding you. What an amazing thing to be a person who gets to discover the wonders of the world and tell the story to others!

We are meant to follow our hearts. And a cool thing happens when you are brave enough to take your direction from within—suddenly kindred spirits show up to help you. And the groups we were in before, that didn’t feel like quite the right fit for us, suddenly give way to groups who are following their hearts too.

If everyone were able to find the courage to ask themselves who they really are and follow their bliss, the world would be a different place. Nobody would be lonely. We could get on the same page faster—if we knew each one of us was an open book, if we knew we all had our cards on the table and all we really wanted was to live in peace and connect with love.

Life is not meant to be a hierarchy or power struggle where those who “have” more can rule over those who “have” less. It’s meant to be a beautiful symphony, where every instrument in the orchestra matters as much as the others, the piccolo carrying the same gravitas as the tuba.

If my art helps people to see this, I will have done my job.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
In Los Angeles, my favorite place to stay is the Best Western Plus Sunset Plaza. It’s a perfect blend of Old Hollywood landmarks (the original Garden of Allah, where stars stayed in Humphrey Bogart’s day, is a few blocks away, and so is the original Charlie Chaplin’s studios) and late-20th century Hollywood, meaning if you want to see the Viper Room or the Comedy Store, you don’t have to go far. The Chateau Marmont is right across the street. The beaches are not a long drive. And if you’d like to shop on Rodeo Drive or check out the Grove, that’s not far either.

My favorite restaurants in L.A. are Crossroads Kitchen and Cafe Gratitude. The day I checked off “surf in the Pacific” from my dad’s bucket list, we dined at Crossroads and Keanu Reeves walked in (this was notable because I’d just watched his movie “Point Break” for the first time!). We revisited Crossroads after my book talk for book My Father’s List at Zibby’s Bookshop in 2023.

My favorite museums in L.A. are the Getty, the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the new Academy Museum (we’ve already been twice). When we visited the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a man who resembled Henry Gibson in “The ‘Burbs” began playing violin in the rooftop aviary while my husband and I ate madeleines and drank tea. This would have been less odd if it hadn’t also been after dark, if we hadn’t been surrounded by parakeets, and if we hadn’t been the only two people there. The Getty was my first stop when I visited L.A. in 2011, for the first time, so the giant bougainvillea topiaries in the gardens will be a sight I always associate with Los Angeles. There are too many gardens and hikes for me to list as my favorites, but the Huntington Garden is my favorite place in the world.

Before the end of the visit, I’d be sure to take my fellow travelers to see the Hollywood Stars in the Walk of Fame, the Egyptian Theatre, the Hollywood Sign and of course the canals at Venice Beach.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Steven Seighman, my husband, is a wonderful film critic, podcast host, book designer, food, animal and travel photographer, and movie poster creator. He wears many hats—I’m so grateful one of them is my love.

Website: https://bylauracarney.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/myfatherslist

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauracarney/

Twitter: https://x.com/lac30

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carney.laura/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@myfatherslist/

Image Credits
courtesy Laura Carney