Strong, versatile editor and writer who excels at conceiving, shaping, and executing storytelling projects across platforms. Experienced, collaborative leader who works productively with professionals at every level, from coaching interns to speechwriting for CEOs. Adept at fashioning compelling content for a specific target audience or for modern media consumers in general, with emphasis on inventive text and visual approaches, graphics, and interactives. Accustomed to working on tight deadlines with poise and good humor, and achieving excellent results.
Freelance journalist Patricia Edmonds has worked as a writer, editor, project leader, co-author and consultant for more than three decades. She spent the past 9½ years at National Geographic, where she rose to the role of executive editor for short form editorial, overseeing the creation of a broad range of content for National Geographic print and digital platforms. She helped implement a redesign of National Geographic magazine’s front section, and led the development of new features including a monthly signature essay. Projects she most enjoyed writing include an essay for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, on artifacts found in the rubble; and the series Basic Instincts, cheeky explainers on animal reproduction.
A veteran of digital, newspaper and magazine journalism, Patty previously headed the online news operation at NPR.org. There she led an overhaul of the system that translated NPR radio journalism to the web, and orchestrated the web component of NPR’s 9/11 coverage that won Peabody, Dupont and other journalism awards.
Patty has written and edited content for national and international organizations including the World Bank, and has created texts for display in the museum at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at Ground Zero in New York City. As a co-writer and consultant, Patty has partnered with book authors, public speakers and thought leaders to develop, refine and deliver their messages to a wide variety of audiences. She has been a co-author, ghostwriter and developmental editor on non-fiction books for leading professionals in fields as diverse as medicine, leadership and technology, shepherding projects from conception to publication.
Patty’s career in newspaper, magazine and online journalism has included stints at USA TODAY, USA WEEKEND Magazine, the Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau and the Detroit Free Press. Across platforms, she has written comprehensively on social science, cultural, scientific, political and religious topics, for audiences as disparate as the 33 million Sunday-magazine readers of USA WEEKEND and the radio/web consumers of NPR.
Patty has reported from Europe and Asia as well as across the United States. Her work has appeared in publications ranging from AARP.org, interest.com and Washingtonian to Woman’s Day, Preservation and Southern Accents. Her reporting on the therapeutic uses of virtual reality in its early days has been excerpted in a Health Reference Series sourcebook and reprinted in Reader’s Digest.
As an online executive and editorial director, Patty has devised content strategy, assigned and edited content, and developed and supervised contributors. She has led strategic planning and research projects for foundation, non-profit and academic groups. She has trained and advised communicators in a variety of settings, including seminars for former Soviet-bloc journalists in the Baltic States, workshops across the United States for the National Press Foundation, and online tutorials for the journalism training organization The Poynter Institute.