Tony Mancus

I’m a poet, writer, artist, and learning designer interested in the ways narrative, memory, systems, and uncertainty shape how people understand the world.

My literary work moves through family history, inheritance, labor, place, masculinity, memory, and the odd pressures of contemporary American life. I’m the author of Same After Life and All the Ordinariness, along with several chapbooks and works published in literary journals.

My visual and performance work often begins with similar questions but takes different forms: collage, interactive writing, participatory systems, and experiments that allow an audience to help determine what a piece becomes.

In my learning-design work, I create simulations and interactive experiences built around decision-making, collaboration, narrative, and reflection. I’m particularly interested in designing environments where people can practice something difficult rather than simply receive information about it.

Across those different kinds of work, I keep returning to the same basic interest: what happens when people are placed inside a story, system, or set of conditions and have to decide what to do next.