Selected Portfolio Samples
Creative nonfiction, cultural criticism, and reflective essays exploring art, sound, identity, and meaning. This work draws from humanities-based inquiry and narrative craft to examine creative systems and everyday experience with clarity, restraint, and interpretive depth.
Core strengths: Cultural analysis, long-form narrative, critical writing
Audiences: Arts and culture readers, interdisciplinary audiences
Formats: Essays, criticism, personal narrative
Focus: Interpretation, voice, reflection
Cultural Essay & Criticism
Philosophy of Beauty in Everyday Life
How Beauty Transcends Pore Count
- Essay reviewing the role of beauty throughout humanity as explored in this book.
Experimental Music & Sound
Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton – Music and Poetry of the Kesh
- Promotional piece using a creative crossword layout to explore the album’s conceptual world.
Multimedia Art
Facing Lorem’s ‘Adversarial Feelings’
- Feature connecting multimedia art to questions about synthetic intelligence and human emotion.
Environmental Aesthetics
The Eternal Snow of Frozen Tears
- Essay on a landscape-based multimedia project exploring climate, fragility and memory.
Creative Nonfiction & Personal Narrative
My reflective essays combine narrative observation with thematic inquiry, using everyday encounters as entry points into emotional, philosophical, and relational insight. These pieces emphasize clarity, restraint, and attentiveness — inviting readers into contemplative spaces where meaning emerges through subtle interactions between self, community, and environment.
Living in the Presence of Divine Grace
- Profile of an Art of Living instructor introducing non-dualistic teachings through personal practice and lived philosophy.
Love Yourself and Manifest Your Dreams!
- Promotional article about lifestyle coaching services offered by Jade Hudek, The 5D Coach, whose work blends scientific research with spiritual wisdom, empowering people to manifest their dreams.
- A poetic meditation on companionship, care, and the quiet forms of meaning pets bring into daily life.
- A narrative tribute to a local San Diego nursery, exploring community support, place-based relationships, and the restorative role of gardening.
Todd B. Gruel 