Culture Map
Originally Posted: March 17, 2015
New York may be the center of the publishing universe, but not if Deep Vellum founder Will Evans has anything to do with it. Evans has ambitious plans for our city’s role in the literary landscape, even if he ended up here more or less accidentally.
“To be fair, I didn’t choose Dallas, Dallas chose me,” he explains. “My wife got a job here, so we moved in 2013. I created Deep Vellum around what Dallas has and doesn’t have: There’s a great arts community, and it’s not tapped out.
“The digital revolution has changed how we read and find out about stuff,” Will Evans says. “You can live in a place like Dallas and be part of the conversation.”
“It’s the future of publishing to be in a decentralized place. The digital revolution has changed how we read and find out about stuff. You can live in a place like Dallas and be part of the conversation.”
With a mission of publishing international literature in English translation, Evans was drawn to UTD’s literary translations program, one of the best in the country. SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences dean Thomas DiPiero is also “a big supporter of translations,” according to Evans, assuring there will be plenty of home-grown talent emerging in the next few years to work with Evans’ stable of authors. READ MORE