Fiscal Sponsorship, Frankfurt, Podcasts Galore
Your intrepid publisher at the House of Peruvian Literature in Lima.
Hello friends, it’s been a minute, and for that, I apologize. Since the last post a month ago, I went on vacation in Colombia and Peru for two weeks, and getting ready for and then decompressing from the trip took it out of me–not that I was never not busy (as I explain below). But if you ever get a chance, you should hit those two incredible countries up! I spent my time in Colombia in Cartagena and Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park, an eight hour bus ride north of Cartagena (past Barranquilla and Santa Marta). In Peru, I was fortunate enough to spend four days in Lima, where I met fellow translation publisher (and fantastic Spanish translator) Lucas Lyndes of Ox & Pigeon, and then traveled to the Peruvian highlands, visiting Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley, Cuzco, and Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. A great trip, a wonderful country, I recommend everyone to visit!
So I came back determined to publish some authors from Colombia and Peru, my search will begin when I attend the Frankfurt Book Fair next month. I went last year and took meetings for Chad Post of Open Letter Books, who couldn’t attend, as well as my own interests at Deep Vellum, which technically didn’t exist yet. But this year, I am proud to announce not only will I be attending, but Deep Vellum is part of the CLMP booth (Council of Literary Magazines & Presses), along with peer publishers (all of whom I look up to greatly) like Open Letter, Akashic Books, Bellevue Literary Press, Milkweed Editions, and more. If you’re in Frankfurt, stop by our stand any time for more information on this collection of America’s finest independent publishers, we’re in Hall 8, Booth P10. I probably won’t be there much, aside from at the party we’re hosting at the booth (CLMP Frankfurt Whiskey Party 5pm 10-10-13!!!), all my meetings are primarily in Halls 5 & 6, where the international, non-German, non-English publishing world is hosted (though I have a few meetings in Halls 3 & 4 with the Germans and French!).
Also of note, earlier this summer I did an interview with Scott Esposito (of Two Lines Press,The Center for the Art of Translation, and The Quarterly Conversation) for his podcast with Daniel Medin of the American University of Paris, That Other Word. It was a great interview, my favorite I’ve done so far, and in it for the first time I leak the name of the first four books Deep Vellum will be publishing in 2014. Check it out at this link, and let me know what you think!
If you’re wondering what I’ve been doing in my time outside of posting rants on Twitter, recording podcast interviews, and traveling, I’ve been getting Deep Vellum’s business in order, fiscally and organizationally. Before I left for South America, I presented to the board of an amazing, local Dallas literary nonprofit called The Writer’s Garret seeking fiscal sponsorship for Deep Vellum. Fiscal sponsorship, for those who don’t know what it is, I’m slowly learning (correct me if I’m wrong), basically it means that instead of me applying for my own 501(c)3 status, which is expensive, tedious, and hard to get, so instead of doing that, I seek “fiscal sponsorship” under the “umbrella” of an existing 501(c)3 organization whose mission fits with mine. With this fiscal sponsorship, I can then open a bank account, start to fundraise and accept tax-deductible donations, and, super-importantly, start applying for grants from local, state, and federal government organizations and foundations who support the arts, literature, or publishers, but who only accept applications from 501(c)3 organizations. The catch-22 in all of this is that it wouldn’t be so hard to be a 501(c)3 if I could get a grant, of course you can’t get a grant unless you’re already a 501(c)3 (and willing to fork over $10k for an annual audit and fill out enough paperwork to kill a fleet of well-meaning arts administrators and/or lawyers).
With all of that said, I am proud to announce that Deep Vellum has been accepted as a fiscally sponsored organization by The Writer’s Garret!
We haven’t started any fundraising campaigns of our own, but you can make one of the first-ever donations to Deep Vellum by joining The Writer’s Garret during their current membership drive, just click this link and join The Writer’s Garret using the Deep Vellum code at the bottom of the page! $20 of the $45 fee goes into our account that we will be using to pay authors and translators to get Deep Vellum’s first four titles in to print (and digital formats) next year! I’ll be launching some more fundraising campaigns this fall as I continue to get all of the business end of things for Deep Vellum established. But thank you for your early support!
Also, look out soon for new reviews on the Three Percent blog for Carlos Busqued’s dark Under This Terrible Sun (published by Frisch & Co.) and two books of Russian poetry from Zephyr Press, Paul Klee’s Boat by Anzhelina Polonnskaya, and Relocations: 3 Contemporary Russian Women Poets with Polina Barskova, Anna Glazova, and Maria Stepanova.
And thank you for your time. This is a long post. I’ve been reading a lot of Proust. Blame the Monsieur.