Tomis Press was created to publish literature for outsiders. And let’s face it, we all feel like outsiders sometimes.
Tomis is a state of mind.
But the name is based on a historical event: something that happened just over two thousand years ago.
In the 7th year of the Common Era, the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar exiled the transgressive poet Ovid.
Accusing him of being a morally bad influence and possibly a political subversive, the emperor ordered the poet sent away in disgrace.
Best known for his epic mythology poem, Metamorphoses, Ovid was sent far away from his native Italy to the distant town of Tomis, on the shores of the Black Sea in what is now Romania. Ovid lived there in Tomis for the rest of his life, in a cold climate, an exile among foreign people whose language he did not speak.
Togetherness Through Reading
Ovid was formally and physically exiled; but in our minds, most of us have been there at some point.
At some point in our lives, most of us have felt alone against the world: misunderstood, apart, rejected, or unfairly maligned.
And when we’re in that place, books offer us hope.
When we read books together, we can join each other in that place. And through our shared experiences, we become less alone.
Thus, reading helps us leave the mental realm of Tomis, and return to the present, in all its splendid wonder, and all its rust and dirt.
At Tomis Press, it is our hope to publish the sort of books that have the power to meet you in the mental realm of Tomis, the land of exiles; and to return with you hither, as you journey back home.
Or perhaps, we learn to become happy in Tomis, with all its exciting strangeness offering us new opportunities to learn and explore. For eventually Ovid’s wife joined him there in his distant exile, two thousand years ago: and although he continued to long for Rome, together they made a new home there in Tomis.
And that’s the story of why we named our new imprint Tomis Press.
Come join us in exile!
You’re different. We admire that. It takes courage to be different. Keep on being you.