Meet the Team: Riley Rennhack
Next up in the Meet the Team series is Riley Rennhack, our Bookstore Director & Buyer. Read along as she shares about the dearths of the DFW metroplex, Carmen Boullosa’s influence, and a healing neighbor.
Where are you based? Dallas, TX
What’s your role at Deep Vellum? Bookstore Director & Buyer: I run our storefront, plan our Dallas-based events, manage our brilliant team of booksellers, and keep the store stocked with a diverse selection of books you may not be able to find anywhere else in the DFW metroplex. We carry everything we've ever published and some curated shelves of fiction and nonfiction titles that are mostly independently published.
What's the best or most interesting part of your job? Connecting the people of Dallas with some of the best writers and translators working today!
What is your favorite book we've published, and why? Texas: The Great Theft is the first book we published and the first one I read. Boullosa's a genius and every single one of her books is a distinct work of art. Texas busted open my idea of what contemporary literature could be, and where it might bloom. I was living in NYC at the time and I vividly remember thinking, "This was published in Dallas?" It planted a little seed that led me back to my hometown.
What’s your background? To quote Borges, "Que otros se jacten de las páginas que han escrito; a mí me enorgullecen las que he leído." I've been working with and around books for most of my adult life, and I've been a fanatical reader for as long as I can remember. I grew up in DFW, but spent a decade in NYC reading and writing and getting paid to sell books. I've also been a teacher, a performance artist, a translator, a barista, a poet, a domestic worker, and a booking agent. As of December 2024, I'm a mom—by far the coolest and most radical thing I've ever done.
What’s a forthcoming book from any of our imprints that you're looking forward to? Juvenilia by Hera Lindsay Bird, illustrated by Gino Dal Cin.
What's the best soup? Anything homemade by my neighbor Karla Marie. She's got the best garden in Dallas and the soups she makes from her harvests have healed me on more than one occasion.