Then I read the story, and all of the joy fled.
There are a lot of issues with it (bogus, unnecessary, “Why not us?” arguments, mostly), but I’ll address one in particular: it seems that the author, Lauren Smart, didn’t even bother to talk to one of the story’s voices, Will Evans. (Full disclosure: I’m friends with Will. I saw him Saturday night and ate brunch with him yesterday.)
From the story:
“I set up Deep Vellum in Dallas precisely because we’re not a publishing mecca, though I honestly believe we could become one,” Evans says. “I set up here to try to capitalize on what we already have going on, but at the same time [because we’re] working tirelessly to build an even better city that has a more well-rounded literary and arts community.”
From an August Observer blog post:
“I set up Deep Vellum in Dallas precisely because we’re not a publishing mecca, though we I honestly believe we could become one. In graduate school I got inspired to start my own publishing house, and when my wife got a job in Dallas I was like, “Could I do this in Dallas?!” And in the research I did, the answer made itself very clear to me: Dallas would be a phenomenal place to start Deep Vellum. There are innumerable amazing literary and arts resources that already exist here, and so I set up Deep Vellum here to try to capitalize on what we already have going on, but at the same time working tirelessly to build an even better city that has a more well-rounded literary and arts community.”
Two things. One, that quote doesn’t even make sense in the broader scale of the story. It’s about publishing, not bookstores. Two, it’s not Smart’s quote. Well, it is a quote from a story from a Smart, but it’s from her sister, Jennifer. The story never indicates that the quote is from another piece, or that Lauren Smart didn’t get the quote herself.
The bigger problem, though, is that if Smart had interviewed Evans for this story, she would’ve found out that he’s planning on opening a bookstore. In Deep Ellum. He’s already negotiating it with a landlord.
So, not only does she poach a quote from a previous story (which, FINE, that’s a grayish area), but if she’d bothered to do a little reporting she would’ve found out Evans’ plans. Or maybe she did know that, and just ignored it.
Pete talked to Evans for our September issue. In it, they talk about bookstores.
