What if a book isn’t just entertainment but civic infrastructure? We sit down with Will Evans—publisher, bookseller, and founder of Deep Vellum—to explore how reading rewires the brain for empathy, how curation beats overwhelm, and why a single bookstore can change the texture of a neighborhood. From the rise of Dallas’s literary ecosystem to the surprising power of BookTok resurrecting Dostoevsky, we follow the threads that connect curiosity, translation, and community.  
  
Will shares why physical books still matter in a digital age, explaining how spatial memory and the tactile act of reading fire up the parts of our mind that help us feel what others feel. We talk about publishing “outside of time” to protect voices that fall through commercial cracks—formally daring novels, international literature, and titles that return to shape public life decades later, like The Accommodation. Along the way, he traces his own path through Russian literature, the questions that great fiction refuses to stop asking, and the teachers who convert students into lifelong readers.  
  
We also tackle the age-nine reading drop-off, practical ways to invite reluctant readers back in, and the role of bookstores as cultural anchors rather than mere retail. If you care about translation, local history, or how stories can heal fractured streets, you’ll find tactics and inspiration here: meet people where they are, center curiosity over credential, and build a constellation of partners—schools, libraries, indie shops, and readers—who turn a city into a literary home.  
  
Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a new gateway book, and leave a review with the title that first made you feel seen. Your story might be the spark that brings a new reader inside the tent.

[**Will's Profile**](https://www.fortheloveofcreativespodcast.com/guests/will-evans/)  
[**Will's Website**](http://deepvellum.org/)  


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#055: How Books Spark Empathy, Community, And Cultural Change With Will Evans