MICHAEL GRAHAM FRY

SELECTED WRITING, STORYTELLING & CROSS-PLATFORM CREATIVE WORK

Chicago, IL • 708.280.7304 • michael@storywurx.com • storywurxstudio.com

A project-based account of the writing, original concepts, narrative strategy, media formats, and collaborative creative direction behind selected work. This is a detailed creative-work overview—not a second résumé. Credits distinguish writing, strategic development, and direction from collaborators’ production and design execution.

01 PUBLIC HEALTH, GOVERNMENT & HEALTHCARE

Defense Suicide Prevention Office (DSPO) | WeBe Life / Department of Defense

Scope: original scripted films, campaign storytelling, website copy and UX, executive communications, technical writing, information design, journey mapping, and creative direction. Work performed through WeBe Life with partner teams.      

  • Original film storytelling — Conceived and wrote all five We Defend Our Own suicide-prevention vignettes, developing concepts, characters, scenarios, dialogue and scripts. Each vignette reflected one of the DoD’s five prevention focus areas and represented one of the five service branches. Served as on-set creative director, helping carry the written stories into performance and production.

  • Website copy and UX — Wrote website content and contributed to user-experience thinking: organizing sensitive, technically complex prevention information into understandable pages, pathways, labels and audience-centered messaging.

  • DSPO 101 / Connect to Protect — Wrote presentation copy and developed the leadership/stakeholder presentation outline, creating a coherent narrative of DSPO’s origins, mission, guiding models, relationships, capabilities and prevention approach. Structured material for DoD leadership, service branches, federal and state partners, and community stakeholders.

  • Technical and professional writing — Produced technical writing for journals and specialist communications, translating research, prevention frameworks and program information into clear, accurate professional language.

  • Infographics and journey maps — Helped create, structure and design infographics, journey maps and visual models explaining prevention initiatives, service-member experiences, support systems, partnerships and routes to care. Wrote explanatory copy and helped creatively direct information-design decisions alongside designers.

  • Campaign and design direction — Contributed to strategy, narrative architecture and visual creative direction across the five service branches and five focus areas: training modernization, supportive environments, lethal means safety, reducing stigma/barriers to care, and mental-health-care delivery. Worked across film, web, slide presentations, data visualization and outreach materials.

REACH / PREVENTS | Public-Service Campaign Development

  • Developed original campaign concepts, the System of Service narrative, messaging frameworks and video scripts. Shaped how prevention goals and interconnected services could be communicated as understandable, actionable stories across presentation, video and public-facing formats.

Texas Spine & Joint Hospital / Baylor Scott & White | Healthcare Brand Writing

  • Wrote website copy and brand video scripts through Octane Rich Media, including communications around the hospital’s Baylor Scott & White affiliation. Connected medical expertise, patient experience and institutional credibility through accessible, reassuring language across digital and video.

Living With FCS: Foods to Focus On With FCS | Patient Education

  • Co-wrote educational video/script content for people with familial chylomicronemia syndrome and their caregivers. Turned complex nutritional guidance into understandable everyday scenarios, balancing factual accuracy with clarity and narrative engagement.

Heal With Hope | Nigeria Substance-Misuse Awareness

  • Developed social campaign messaging and copy for a yearlong pro bono awareness effort through WeBe Life Foundation and Nigerian collaborators. Helped shape campaign narrative, content themes, social executions and creative direction for community-facing communication.

02 INTEGRATED ADVERTISING & BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT

Cricket Wireless | Half Is More

  • Developed campaign concepts, slogans/taglines, character-based storytelling and co-written advertising copy. Helped translate a central campaign idea across broadcast, digital, social and print; contributed to casting, on set creative direction and Spanish-language integration with collaborators.

Verizon FiOS | Integrated Consumer Advertising

  • Developed campaign concepts, messaging, slogans and taglines for broadband services, with story-driven creative directions spanning multiple channels. Brought comedy, character and narrative structure into commercial concepts while working within brand and product objectives.

Jim Beam Honey | Branded Entertainment

  • Wrote scripts and developed story concepts that brought the product into entertaining narratives rather than stand-alone claims. Worked with Octane Rich Media/Edelman collaborators and provided on-set creative direction to carry the scripted idea through production.

Habitat for Humanity | Advertising & Brand Video

  • Wrote advertising copy and video scripts and provided on-location creative direction, shaping messages that made the organization’s mission accessible and emotionally resonant.

Additional Commercial & Brand Assignments

  • Selected writing, concept and cross-platform creative work includes Abercrombie & Kent Private Jet launch, Toyota Camry Comedies, First Alert/OneLink, Crème of Nature, Jarden and Oshkosh/Transformers 4. Assignments ranged across branded entertainment, digital and video concepts, product storytelling and campaign messaging.

Bloque de Cocles | English–Spanish Integrated Campaign, Costa Rica

  • Created a bilingual campaign with original concepts, headlines, calls to action and English- and Spanish language messaging. Adapted a shared narrative across posters, print, social media and community outreach for audiences with different cultural and linguistic contexts.

  • Developed the communication approach and creative direction to keep the campaign recognizable across formats; coordinated messaging intended to inform, connect and mobilize community stakeholders. This is a concrete example of multicultural concept-to-execution campaign writing.

03 INTERNATIONAL BRAND WRITING & EXPERIENCE

Domaine du Soleil-Filant | Provence, France / Tokyo, Japan

  • Serve as Brand Strategist & Advisor and principal author of internal- and external-facing brand copy and strategic/creative concept briefs. Develop the language of provenance, craftsmanship, scarcity and experience for a premium Provençal micro-domaine.   

  • Build the brand narrative, positioning, tone of voice, messaging architecture and product storytelling across rosé, white and red wine concepts, with olive oil and honey as planned extensions—not launched products.

  • Write creative and strategic briefs guiding website direction, brand identity, hospitality materials, launch storytelling, visual production and experiential activations. Collaborate with founders, oenology experts, designers and partners; contribute creative direction and on-site event direction in France and Tokyo without claiming sole visual design execution.

  • Adapt storytelling to different cultural settings and market audiences while maintaining a consistent brand voice across French, Japanese and English collaboration.

04 EDUCATION, COMMUNITY & NARRATIVE-BASED COACHING

Storywurx | Chicago Public Schools and YCCS  

  • Created writing-intensive, story-based curricula and narrative frameworks for K–12 learners, including work at Emmett Till Elementary, Lionel Hampton Fine & Performing Arts School, Scott Joplin Elementary, and three years of YCCS-Austin / YCCS West residencies. Used character, conflict, three-act storytelling, writing and media creation to strengthen student voice.

  • Wrote proposals, lesson frameworks, workshop materials and teaching-artist guidance; led creative curriculum development and collaborative delivery. Work includes four Ingenuity Creative Arts Fund grants and The Change Agency’s 2021–22 Lollapalooza Creative Arts Award, as listed in the master résumé.

Educator Professional Development | CPS, wholisticEDU, YouTube 

  • Developed and taught educator-facing learning narratives, workshops and curricula, including CPS Arts Integration training in Adobe Creative Suite and AI Integration Across All Subjects; the two-day Convergence Classroom; and professional development through wholisticEDU.

  • Created and presented YouTube Creator’s Summit sessions Interactive Storytelling and Digital Storytelling 101, translating narrative craft into practical digital-creator learning experiences.

InnerOuter Coaching / Humanity United | Narrative Reframing

  • Use listening, story reframing, somatic awareness and reflective exercises in trauma-responsive coaching with social-impact professionals. This is narrative-based coaching and mentoring, not clinical therapy or an advertising campaign.

05 TELEVISION & LONG-FORM STORYTELLING FOUNDATION

Professional television writing includes The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Townsend Television and The Parent ’Hood; developed and sold the original pilot All Aboard to Tri-Star. Former tenured professor and television-writing coordinator at Columbia College Chicago. Co-author of Storytelling Across Worlds: Transmedia for Creatives and Producers (Focal Press, 2013). These credits underpin the character, dialogue, pacing, emotional stakes and narrative structure brought to brand and campaign writing. Selected-work overview. Full scripts, visual executions, and confidential client materials can be shared only where permissions allow.