You might say that Will Evans A.M.’12 embodies the new Dallas.
A mustachioed hipster “visionary” as one city leader calls him, Evans, 41, is a publisher, book translator and expanding entrepreneur who sees a future for the big D that makes it a literary and cultural scene rivaling New York, London, Paris and beyond.
“We want to be the DFW airport of literary culture,” he proclaims with a nod to a hub that funnels travelers to expansive destinations. “We want to bring the world to Dallas from Dallas. We started buying into that mentality of the city we call home. We want to further our story, to be a city that doesn’t have to look to New York for culture but to appreciate what we have, what we generate, what we do from here.”
Evans grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, and earned a master’s degree in Russian literature at Duke after receiving a bachelor’s degree from Emory University in Georgia. His early career was not focused on writers and books. He ditched a Ph.D. program to manage a band on tour and later worked booking acts for Live Nation in Los Angeles and curating performers for the legendary punk bar Emo’s in Austin before moving to the Dallas area where his now-wife grew up.
In Dallas, Evans, a father of two, quickly established himself as a player in the exploding arts scene of the city that strains to redefine itself amid Texas’ newfound appeal to California-expats and others seeking wide-open spaces alongside the freedom to create.
Evans founded Deep Vellum – its name a nod to high quality parchment paper and to the textured city neighborhood known as Deep Ellum – in 2013. The business began as a non-profit indie publishing house where Evans exercised his passion for finding “undersold” stories and translating manuscripts to reach new audiences. He expanded that operation in 2016 to a bookstore and event space – hosting more than 750 events since he opened. His retail storefront has become a cultural hotspot for writers, musicians and artists in the community.
“Will is a visionary,” says Jennifer Scripps, president and CEO of Downtown Dallas, who met Evans in 2016 and praises him as a champion of not just writers but also readers. “I am fond of his energy,” she adds.
“He’s niche but he’s been able to grow so effectively with an extraordinary eye for talent,” said Scripps, who praises Evans’ civic-mindedness. “He is a real leader who has published some very important Dallas stories that need to be told.”
Evans’ venture into translation began in high school when his teacher made the class read a book not originally written in English. He picked “The Life of a Useless Man” by Maxim Gorky about the 1905 Russian Revolution. “It made me feel really small in a good way and made me say I want to learn more about the world.”
Evans says his career in niche publishing was spawned at Duke where he majored in Russian literature and began his own translation of unique texts. It was Duke’s interdisciplinary focus on the humanities that really aligned with his thinking.
In his first translation during his master’s program, Evans says, he began to study the publishing industry and to develop a Duke-inspired model that would allow him to apply the lessons of humanity to society. He decided then that he would not just publish books but would cultivate a more engaged readership aimed at fostering dialogue, which has become his company’s mission.
His brand, fueled by ideas of social entrepreneurship, has taken off. Deep Vellum is now the biggest publisher of translated literature in the history of the English language, earning Evans a cultural distinction from France as a member of the Order of Arts and Letters.
“To read creatively, to read critically, with the ability to question what you are reading – that is what Duke taught me,” he says.
He adds: “Our goal is to go to readers. You can’t always expect readers to come to you to discover an innovative work of literature or poetry by someone from another country or a city that you never thought was literary, like Dallas. And we’re trying to tell you that they all belong. The goal is to elevate these voices.”