WRITING AND EDITING
From simple children’s stories to persuasive advertising copy to pretentious literary verbosity: Blake Manning is a wordsmithing chameleon.
Writing experience highlights:
Seattle University: magazine articles, social media posts, blog entries, email and newsletter communications, web content
World Gym International: advertising copy, brand guidelines, social media guide, web content, internal communications
Adventure Boys Company: story arc collaboration and ancillary content for 13 published children’s books, web content, advertising copy; authored and published two comic books and a children’s guide to making home movies
Passion projects: authored two literary novels and dozens of essays and literary short stories
Excerpt from a Seattle University Newsroom article, 2025:
Richard “Dick” Schwaegler, who attended Seattle University in the mid-1950s, has a lot to say. At 91 years young, the former Seattle University engineering professor has led a life of energy and activity. As a result, his stories are full of interest and flow naturally. But if you ask him what inspired a group of former students to create a scholarship in his honor, he’s at a rare loss for words…
Story synopsis for Cryptic Science: the Secret of Groom Lake, published by Adventure Boys company, 2007:
Rick Lopez dreams of something more.
Something more than the one-room trailer where he attends school. Something more than wondering what goes on below the surface at Groom Lake’s rumored underground labs.
Living on the country’s most top-secret military base, he dreams of becoming a scientist, an inventor, or maybe even one of the Air Force’s famed test pilots.
But neither his wildest dreams nor his worst nightmares can prepare him for the strange and dangerous truths he’ll face when he discovers The Secret of Groom Lake.
Excerpt from Seattle University Brand Guidelines, 2025:
Images—whether still or motion—are very often the centerpieces of our brand expression. They are a universal language that can capture attention, inform and inspire, evoke emotional responses, and leave a lasting impression. They can tell our audience who we are and what we stand for, even before they see our logo or hear our message.
Through great photography and videography, we have the opportunity to establish Seattle University as a prestigious, innovative institution with lofty ambitions.
Ultimately, prospective students should see our photos and envision themselves in this environment. Current students and alumni should feel proud of their university. Donors should be inspired. And the world at large should be compelled to view Seattle University as a place where great and exciting things are happening.
Advertising copy (brand message), World Gym International:
Heavy breathing, the clanking of weights, the pounding of feet on treadmills: this is our symphony, our rock anthem, our heavy metal. This is our world tour with no sleep ‘til Brooklyn. So come train at World Gym, and join the band.
Advertising copy (sales message), World Gym International:
Welcome to World Gym, the world-famous brand of seriously fun fitness. Whether you’re continuing a lifelong passion for fitness or just getting started, we’re here to support you in achieving your fitness goals. Come see why we’re the ultimate fitness destination in Toronto:
Gleaming new facility with over 45,000 sq. feet of workout space
Dozens of Group X classes every week
Free weights, machines, and more than 90 pieces of cardio equipment
Basketball court and Olympic-sized pool
Tanning and hydromassage
Merch shop and juice bar
Access to 220+ locations worldwide
Join now for $0 down and just $29.99 per month!
Excerpt from a Seattle University social media post, 2025:
As Seattle University prepares students to solve the world’s toughest challenges, it makes sense that our faculty and staff should be intimately familiar with these challenges.
This past December, four alumni, faculty, and staff members were part of a larger Seattle University entourage who traveled to Mexico for a cultural immersion experience. They met with immigrants who had been kidnapped by cartels, organic farmers seeking a more sustainable approach, artisans working to uphold their culture, and indigenous persons with many gifts to share – and they were among the 10 million-plus who converged upon Mexico City’s Basilica of Our Lady of Guadelupe for the world’s largest Catholic pilgrimage…
Excerpt from a Seattle University blog post, 2023:
By random chance, Bridgette Huhtala, ’22, was sitting in the front row at this year’s Commencement ceremony. The day had already been filled with jubilation. But it was about to get even better.
While fellow grads were crossing the stage and receiving their scrolls, Huhtala waited patiently for her turn. “I looked across the aisle at one point,” she recalls, “and saw someone opening their scroll. It was such a thrilling feeling to see them unrolling a print of my artwork!”
To understand how Huhtala’s mixed-medium vignette of Centennial Fountain ended up in the possession of every 2022 Seattle University graduate, we have to take a step back…
Creative writing sample:
…The young goat was white all over: just medium-length, course white hair, with white upon white, and white between the white, and no other colors nowhere – excepting his lips and nose and eyes and hoofs, which of course was all the usual colors. He was plain white everywhere, but it don’t stand for nothing. It don’t mean he was mysterious like the great whale from the sailing book, or had special properties, or was innocent and sent by angels or any of that kinda rubbish. He was just white, and I’m not making it up. Go to any county fair and you’ll see: there’s plenty of white goats and that’s just how it is. It don’t mean nothing.
The other thing is, the goat didn’t speak English. This ain’t that kinda story. Nor did he go ‘round goring trolls or nursing the baby gods or teaching moral lessons to ornery kids. So if you was eager for one of them sweet little tales where all the animals talk to everyone, or are magic, or wear glitter and diamonds, and all the kids who read about ‘em grow up half-witted and confused about the whole dang world, and don’t know the difference from truth and make-believe, and can’t never figure out why their sappy dreams don’t come true – well then, I’m sorry, but you’re on the wrong bus. You better take yourself on down to Disneytown or something. ‘Cause this ain’t what you’re looking for…
Creative writing sample:
…We find it exhausting, this Roman heat. We would like to see Rome in the rain — or shrouded lightly in fog, silver droplets dangling from the pointed tips of olive leaves, cobblestones made slick below the parakeet’s arguments, while the spectral morning glow lends soft shadows to the tensed arches and archaic colonnades of the eternal city.
Let us witness the charms of this town in a lightning storm; give us tornadoes, hurricanes, the icy petrification of glacial times. Give us any sort of weather whatsoever, so long as we escape this monotonous, ever-blue, oppressive furnace that draws the tickling sweat down the spine and everywhere all at once, saturating even the airiest of linens in blotchy patterns of darkness, while with every motion of the body, the unwanted American tourist sprinkles his salty rain upon every item in the shop, and every plate in the cafe, and every fresco, tapestry, and canvas at the venerable museums.
We would like to see Rome in the actual rain…