Why an Independent Literary Publisher Would Open a Bookstore in Texas...

At LitHub, Deep Vellum founder Will Evans talks about the indie publisher's move to open a bookstore in Texas--in Deep Ellum of Dallas, to be specific--"the closest thing Dallas has to a melting pot neighborhood and inspiration for the name of Deep Vellum Publishing."

The space is packed to the brim with nothing but independently published literature: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, zines, chapbooks, and whatever else inspires us, whatever else is the alternative literature, the antidote to the commonplace, the boring, the banal. I want to focus on the books published by the community-builders and bold editorial visionaries across the country who make our world better, more literary. The goal is to celebrate the independently published written word.

It's about a global focus and a strong local community:

Why would I want to open a bookstore while running a publishing house? When I moved to Dallas two and a half years ago, there were no literary publishers left in the city—SMU Press had just shut down—and there were no independent bookstores selling new books in the city. And not just an absence in Dallas, but there were none in the entire Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex either. This is a region the size of some countries, with over seven million people, and it had no bookstores. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t cool stuff going on all over the area, especially in Dallas. And that definitely didn’t mean there hadn’t been tons of amazing literary history in Dallas, and in the region, whether or not anybody in or outside of the city was aware of it.

The idea of literary community is important to me. As a reader, I want to meet more readers, more writers, more translators, more people to open my mind up to the possibilities of literature. As a publisher, I want as many readers to engage with my books as possible. And the more readers for my books who live in my own city, in my own neighborhood—that’s the dream.

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More on the space itself: there’s a stage in the corner and a big table in the middle of the floor on wheels—these areas we’ll use to program the space seven days and nights a week, with a mixture of literary programming (readings, lectures, discussions, spoken word, creative writing and translation workshops, bookmaking classes, slam poetry) music (hip-hop, classical, folk, heavier bands), film (a mix of international and local: think Fellini mixed with Shane Carruth… actually, that’s the vibe of the bookstore summed up in one weird combination), art shows (visual, performance, installation), theatrical performances (from Shakespeare to staged readings to interactive and immersive) and more. And in the other corner, there’s a bar—coffee in the morning, beer and wine just after that…

Deep Vellum Books booksellers will be writers or translators, and we will offer writer and translator residencies. As in the new Enrique Vila-Matas novel, The Illogic of Kassel, which describes a scenario wherein the author sits in a Chinese restaurant and writes a novel as a sort of performance art installation. Kind of like that. We want our booksellers to feel at home in a space that supports and nurtures their literary talents.

Sounds heavenly. Congratulations, Texas. Read it all at LitHub.