Welcome to Tomis Press! We are a fairly new and very, very small press publisher, focused on our founding mission of connecting humans to one another through the power of the written word.
Our first few titles were created entirely in-house.
More recently, we’re excited to have begun working directly with a variety of poets, authors, and creators, by publishing thematic collections of their work in our new art and literary journal, Numinosity.
Browse our selection
Below are all the Tomis Press titles to date.
Buy them from this page to receive a special insider price; or search them up on your favorite major online platform.
Numinosity: A Journal of Creative Inspiration
Tomis Press is currently accepting submissions for the second volume of our new art & literary journal.
We thought the first one turned out rather nicely, and we’re so grateful to everyone who participated!
Spring/Summer 2026: Volume 1, No. 1
Our Spring/Summer 2026 issue of Numinosity featured works from eight authors and poets from around the world, all focused on the theme of “love.”
Featured authors
Ashley Collins
Vicki J. O’Grady-Longo
Ioanna Retsou
Jan A. Soloy
Amy McCae
Diana Usher
Ethan J. Specht
Emmett Miller
Kate Hamberger
Editor: Jesse S. Smith
Self-Help & Inspiration
Start Today
Be good to yourself; forgive yourself; believe in yourself. Be good to others; forgive others; believe in others. Think about your thoughts. Live with love. The basic principles of self-help as a personal philosophy are widely known; and many of these ideas have been discussed as a part of various spiritual practices and practical philosophies for thousands of years. Jesse S. Smith‘s take on self-help philosophy focuses on positivity, illuminated by many references to ancient spirituality from around the world; and by the inspiring examples of a number of great musicians and community members. Get inspired to take on the challenges that face you in your life, set lofty goals, overcome the burdens of the past and worries about the future, allow yourself to see the world in new ways, choose to see a layer of hope and joy and gratitude in your daily experience of life. Take control of your life, and be the awesome person you were meant to be. Start today.
Challenge Journal
This fillable notebook has blank lines organized into sections for conveniently tracking participation in strict challenges such as the famous “75 Hard” mental toughness and fitness challenge. Each facing pair of pages has spaces dedicated to to-do tasks and appointments; gratitude, wins, and plans; a reading log; a meditation log; an exercise log; water logged; a nutrition log; and “The Captain’s Personal Log.” The exercise log is further subdivided into spaces for logging the details of various types of moves and exercises, such as number of reps for each weight in a set with increasing weights. The nutrition log is subdivided into columns for servings, calories, and other metrics. There is finally a checkbox for your “progress pic,” and heading spaces for the date, priority of the day, thought of the day, and the day number of your challenge, which is helpful if you have undertaken a challenge that lasts a specific number of days. This fillable blank journal features a beautifully inspiring cover photo of a sunrise, and a cover that you can write on with a sharpie to make it your own!
Poetry
Months and Days
Major holidays, cultural milestones, and facts about the calendar, both ancient and modern, are celebrated in sonnets, ballads, and blank verse in this tour-de-force collection by the modern poet known as Titus Naso. All the way around the wheel of the year, from New Year’s Day to the next New Year’s Eve, the poems of Months and Days consider the changing months, and the specific days that are important in the modern era to people from a great rainbow variety of personal, cultural, religious, and geographic backgrounds; as well as the days that were important to the people of the past. Special emphasis is placed on the Solstices, Equinoxes, and cross-quarter days, and the ways in which these annual signals of the changing seasons have been observed in rituals by people around the world for thousands of years: from the Native Americans to the ancient Cambodians, Celtic peoples, the old Norse, and the ancient Romans. Modern religious holy days from the Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist religious traditions are described and honored. Modern American civil holidays and important historical dates are given due respect: including Juneteenth and the Stonewall Riots, along with Presidents’ Day and many others. The American civil holidays form an interesting counterpoint to the ancient Roman civil holidays cited by the ancient poet Ovid in his Fasti, which was the original inspiration for this work. Written during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and the tumultuous year that followed, Months and Days is an inspiring modern multicultural and historical glance at the ways in which the people of the world denote the advance of time – all related in verse.
Choosing Change
This inspiring collection of motivational and spiritual poems about living with intention has been one of our most popular poetry titles to date. With its cheerful color scheme and boldly uplifting message, it’s easy to see why. These positive poems invite you to leave the past behind, ignore the naysayers, overcome limitations, strive towards your goals, and achieve more than you had ever dreamed possible. Learn to quiet the voice of doubt and those nagging intrusive thoughts; and focus instead on hope, gratitude, and appreciation for Nature, and the people who love you, and the good things in life. There is no big secret. It just takes a positive attitude, a mindfulness practice, and a lot of hard work. These poems were composed during an intense period of personal transformation, coinciding with the global turmoil precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns of 2020. Inspired by poetry, meditations, a fitness challenge, and time spent in Nature, Titus Naso channeled challenges into the poetry of change, and found a path through to the other side. Now you can follow that journey yourself, when you choose Choosing Change. May you be inspired!
A Year Outside of Time
Follow one rural parent’s personal experience of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and the tumultuous year that followed, narrated in verse form. It all began in April of the year 2020, when the artist known as Titus Naso had been reading a translation of Ovid’s Fasti, which is a poetic account of the holidays, festivals, important commemorations, and celestial events noted by the ancient Romans. Thus inspired by a mentor from antiquity, our modern poet, facing uncertain times, resolved to meet the unknown by writing a poem every day for a year. These selected highlights from the resulting body of work are the poems discussing the poet’s own personal experiences of that year: including homeschooling reluctant children; reading the increasingly alarming daily political news; escaping the smoke of the wildfires; and hunkering down to withstand an ice storm and a protracted power outage. Along the way, the poet participates in a wellness challenge and refocuses on self-help. And the end of the year, our poet emerges hopeful and invigorated: as we hope you will, as well, when you’ve had a chance to ponder the poems of A Year Outside of Time.
The Histories
Consider intriguing parallels between the past and the present through the lens of Titus Naso’s poetic contemplations of historical persons and events. The poems of The Histories describe the life stories of scientists and philosophers; of poets (several of them) and Emperors; of Presidents and tree planters; of working people and aristocrats; of change makers and tyrants. These are stories of exile and acceptance; stories of Biblical figures, a variety of political and cultural heroes, scientists, soldiers, a blind visionary, a volcano, and a waterfall. It’s beautiful. Penned during the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, The Histories delights and perhaps at times disturbs readers with reminders of who we are and who we have been. The exile of the poet Ovid; modern Civil Rights activists; major religious figures; and the attempted insurrection of January 6, 2021: all figure prominently in this timely selection of pertinent poems by Titus Naso.
A Different Thousand and One Nights
This collection of narrative poems provides a fresh (and often hilarious) new perspective on stories you’ve known all your life. Join Titus Naso for a rowdy poetic romp through your favorite familiar fairy tales and folklore. This fantastical collection is like a poetic journey from Wonderland to Sleepy Hollow, in the company of Cinderalla, on the decks of the Pequod, all set within the narrative framework of the Tales of the Arabian Nights. More specifically, it’s a verse-form retelling of all those stories and more: 18 different tales in all, also notably including Rip van Winkle, The Bremen Town Musicians, and the Trojan War. In a project largely penned during the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, A Different Thousand and One Nights delights and surprises the reader by looking at the familiar in unexpected new ways.
Self-publishing assistance
We’re not really advertising this widely yet, because we want to enter this market very slowly and be sure that our first few clients have such a stellar experience that they will rave about it for years to come – in a good way. So this service is not really open to the general public yet. But if you’re a writer and you know Jesse and you have a manuscript you’d maybe like to publish under the Tomis Press imprint, get in touch and we’ll talk.
Timeless Modern Classics
The classic literature of the future is being written today by modern authors with a sense of humanity’s enduring connection to the past. At the intersection of past, present, and future, Tomis Press stands ready to join hands and forge connections by sharing the thoughts, ideas, sentiments, and stories of emerging and unique voices.
When the poet Ovid was exiled to Tomis some two thousand years ago, he continued to pour his heart out in his writing; and today, his words have the power to viscerally connect with readers across the millennia. Words have the power to bring people together, even when they are separated by time and distance. All intelligent people sometimes feel alone in the world: but when we connect with others through the power of words, we become a part of a community. Join us in exile. Read books!