Est. in Tennessee · Independent
Books from the places where lives, ideas, and worlds meet.
Third Circle Press is an independent publisher rooted in the hills of middle Tennessee and open to the wider world. We publish literary fiction and nonfiction by writers whose sentences earn their keep, and whose questions stay with the reader long after the book is closed.
Two currents, one press
Fiction
Literature of the in-between.
We publish literary fiction about the intersections of life: the places where one person meets another, where one idea crosses another, where a memory collides with a moment. We are drawn to novels and stories that take seriously the strange weather of a single mind and the quieter seismology of the rooms two people share.
"The best fiction, we think, happens at the crossings: between strangers, between eras, between the self one expects to be and the self one becomes."
We welcome work rooted in Tennessee and the broader South, and we welcome work that begins elsewhere and ends here. What we ask of a manuscript is only that its sentences have been considered, and that its questions have been earned.
Nonfiction
Books for a fuller life.
Our nonfiction exists to help Tennesseans, and anyone else who picks up one of our books, live a better and more fulfilling life. We are not interested in quick fixes or borrowed formulas. We are interested in thoughtful, honest, and useful books about how to work, how to think, how to make, how to rest, and how to be in relation to others.
"A good nonfiction book is a conversation with an older, wiser, more patient version of yourself."
This includes memoir and personal essay, books on craft and vocation, field-tested wisdom from practitioners across the state, and accessible writing from scholars who still believe that a good idea deserves a good sentence.
§ 02 · What We Believe
"The first circle is the self. The second circle is the people immediately around us. The third circle is the wider world we reach by writing and by reading: the circle that lets a life in Tennessee touch a life anywhere, and an idea from anywhere take root here."
— the editors
Featured titles
Now in Print · Fiction
Diagrams
A novel by Daniel Gervals
A young Québécois man leaves his father's farm with an envelope of his mother's savings, and in a cathedral in Poitiers his life splits in two. A literary novel in five musical movements about art, desire, grief, and the slow work of becoming whole.
Read MoreNow in Print · Nonfiction
RunShift
A running method by J.J. Archer
A simple system for 5k, 10k, and half-marathon success. The RunShift Method replaces charts, zones, and guesswork with a clear, practical way to train by feel, build endurance without burnout, and stay in the sport for the long run.
Read More
What we publish
01 / Novels
Literary novels of intersection
Full-length fiction in which people, ideas, and places meet and change one another. We publish two to three novels a year.
02 / Story Collections
Short fiction with long memory
Linked and unlinked collections: work we return to because a single image, sentence, or turn of mind continues to repay attention.
03 / Essays & Memoir
Nonfiction that helps
Essay collections and memoirs with something useful to say about living well: craft, vocation, place, relationship, and time.
04 / Field Guides
Practical wisdom, carefully made
Short, beautifully produced guides on subjects our readers actually live with: working, parenting, aging, grieving, gardening, reading.
05 / Tennessee Voices
A series devoted to our state
An ongoing line of books by and about Tennesseans, in the belief that a region writes itself most truthfully when it writes slowly.
06 / Translations
Letters across the third circle
A small, intentional list of translations, because the wider world is part of our reading, and ought to be part of our publishing.
— The Third Circle Letter —
A quiet letter, a few times a year.
Leave your email and we will write when the next book is ready, and perhaps a little about what we are reading in the meantime. No frequent mail, no noise. You may unsubscribe at any time.
We write — we do not shout.