Greg Mania
“Identity is messy; it changes paths, it picks up things along the way, and then sometimes ejects those things as it goes on. Isn’t that what growing up is, what personhood in general is? Aren’t we all just little tornadoes following a path that is unpredictable, picking things up along the way, and, if and when we outgrow them, hurl them directly onto the roof of a library 30 miles away?”
“I’m incredibly jealous of Greg Mania. In addition to being both hot and young, he’s also an extremely talented and hilarious writer.”
“Mania is charming, honest and, above all, laugh-out-loud funny, and while he doesn’t take himself too seriously, he writes elegantly about both the low and high points of his life. This is a gift of a book from a young writer who seems likely to become a comedy star.”
“Unafraid to tell the messy truths about identity, sex, mental health, and ambition, Mania’s memoir is relatable and fun to read at the same time that it is heartfelt and honest. It even has photos, which are pure gold.”
“An impressive humorist with a voice all his own.”
Greg Mania is a writer, comedian, and award-winning screenwriter based in New York City. He’s the author of the debut memoir, Born to Be Public (Clash Books, 2020) which was an NPR Best Book of 2020 and an O, Oprah Magazine Best LGBTQ Book of 2020 His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Oprah Daily, PAPER, among other international online and print platforms.
In film and TV, he has recently co-wrote and co-produced his first feature-length film, Deadman’s Barstool, which is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video. His pilot script, MANIA, has just won the Grand Prize of the Fourth Annual Stage 32 Comedy Writing Contest. He has also been named the Overall Winner of the Third Annual Filmmatic Screenplay Awards and Second Place Winner at WILLiFEST, was nominated for Best Script at the Ninth Annual New Media Film Festival in Los Angeles and the Palm Springs International Comedy Festival, and, as of writing this, has also been named an official selection in comedy festivals and competitions in Austin, Portland, and Atlanta.
In an interview with Kristen Arnett in BOMB Magazine, Mania was asked, “Do you think some of what we like most about ourselves is the ability to just be absurd sometimes?” He responded, “Absolutely! It’s a tool for survival. At least it is for me. I metabolize everything in my life through humor, especially now. I mean, we live in hell. We need to find something to laugh at, or else we’d be curled up in a ball with the blinds drawn for the rest of eternity.”
Mania lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY.
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