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Fiction

As a girl waits for the return of her disappeared father, the story of four migrant women unravels. In antebellum America: a daydreamer from the country gets an unexpected education on the Mississippi river; a storekeeper falls in love with a thief amid the chaos of Gold Rush San Francisco; a fugitive quadroon re-invents herself in a New York brothel; and a young bride is trapped on a Louisiana sugar plantation. Though they do not know it, their lives are inextricably linked by the men they encounter. 
Peopled by whores, tricksters, gamblers, do-gooders, liars, and fools, and with allusions to the coded language of flowers, Whorticulture is about prostitution in its myriad forms.

"one of the most unique books I've read in ages"

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"not easy to put down and... impossible to forget.  Some part of your soul will stay in the nineteenth century." 

Author Interviews

1 2 3 4 5

Cover WHORTICULTURE E-Book.jpg
Short fiction

NON-fiction

An A-Z of The Ting: Theatre of Mistakes

An A-Z of The Ting: Theatre of Mistakes comprises 16 ebooks with documents (texts, letters, photographs, diagrams, artworks) drawn from this seminal British 1970s performance collective’s private archive and from original research conducted by Marie-Anne Mancio and Jason E Bowman in 2008. 

 

Each book has 26 pages, referencing the alphabet, however there is no more reason to begin with ‘A’ than ‘V,W,X,Y & Z’ and the set's democratic format means entries are placed in unexpected proximity. Encouraging circuitous rather than linear, multi-perspectival rather than singular, readings and reflecting The Theatre of Mistakes's interest in art, chance, mutuality, and inconsistency, the A-Z is part introduction, part photo-essay, part question, and part gossip. 

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Marie-Anne Mancio's An A-Z of The Ting: Theatre of Mistakes 2009 was created as part of a writer’s residency with creative think-tank Proboscis. The books inaugurated Proboscis’ bookleteer publications: texts downloadable for free to be printed and assembled by the reader or read online.

See also her article on the research process.

Select Essays

Exhibition Catalogue: Adelaide Damoah Radical Joy 2022

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Exhibition Catalogue: Wendy Elia Where Are We Now 2021

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DPhil Thesis
Maps for Wayward Performers:
Feminist Readings of Contemporary Live Art Practice in Britain
Download pdf below:
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