Benjamin Hodges
Atlanta-based writer and editor

I am a lifelong enthusiast of letters with equal passions for writing beautiful stories and getting things right.

I have worked as a professional writer and editor for more than 15 years. In that time, I’ve drafted hundreds of speeches for executive leaders, penned award-winning feature stories, edited books and magazines, written for the signatures of politicians, rebranded colleges, fundraised hundreds of thousands of dollars, taught at a public university, and much more.

A ZEAL FOR CRAFT

Narratives aren’t discovered; they’re created. Writing with clarity, energy, and concision, I approach my assignments with a conscientious zeal for the craft.

I think sentences are just as important as the meaning they convey and the visions they summon. Compositions of great beauty and power don’t just rely on an eye for character, conflict, and the texture of experience. They’re also predicated on sound mechanical execution — structure and syntax, phrasing and transitions. I care about creativity and technique to the same degree.

THE DAY JOB

Since 2016, I’ve been the assistant editor of the Georgia State University Magazine, an award-winning quarterly with more than 100,000 subscribers and an extensive web presence.

As assistant editor, I’ve written and edited stories about cold cases, drug addiction, historic buildings, archaeological collections, technology, athletes, musicians, and sculptors.

While my own words fill each issue — from heds and deks to features, profiles, and other bylines — I also overhaul our assigned content. That can entail applying the finishing touches on quality reporting or refashioning lifeless prose into compelling narrative. I love doing both.

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

My work with the written word includes the following:

• Articles, including feature stories, columns, and profiles

• Commercial video scripts

• Comprehensive marketing and sales copy for commercial websites

• Critical music reviews and album release promotional materials

• Daily social media posts

• Direct mail and email marketing

• Fundraising appeals

• Ghostwriting, including official correspondence, endorsements, and letters of recommendation

• Identity copy, including mission statements and key messaging

• Marketing copy, including back covers, product labels and descriptions, and more

• Newsletters

• Operator’s manuals

• Peer-reviewed technical papers

• Professional bios

• Speeches (from brief remarks to keynote addresses)

• Style guides

As an editor, my services range from meticulous proofreading to deep editing. I possess an encyclopedic command of Associated Press (AP) style, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), and Modern Language Association (MLA) style, and I’ve edited everything from feature stories and technical papers to books and manuals. While I can tighten your prose — rewriting sentences and cutting copy to fit — I can also work with you to recreate your text as whole. That means re-envisioning structure, realigning arcs, and drafting new narrative and testimony as the greater goals of your piece may require.

Check out samples of my work under Feature Stories and Copy on Commission, and read what others have to say.

Pricing depends on the length of the copy and the scope of the project. Contact me for a quote.

VITALS

I hold degrees in English from Georgia State University (B.A. ’08) and Portland State University (M.A. ’14). In addition to Atlanta, where I now reside with my wife and children, I’ve lived in Fredericksburg, Va.; Portland, Ore.; and Paris, France.