Monica McLaughlin

Background

About Monica McLaughlin

Basically, I'm all over the place. I've been in the publishing industry for a while now, and (thanks to the downsizing and acquisitions known to everyone involved in this line of work) I've picked up a number of specialties along the way. I began in production and quickly added writing, editing, proofreading, design, illustration — even curatorial work — to my roster of responsibilities. Right now I'm creative director of MLR Media, a Philly-based company that focuses on providing insight to businesses — small and large, public and private, family and non-family — through conferences, magazines, webinars and whatever else we can dream up at any given moment. Our magazines (Directors & Boards, Private Company Director and Family Business) target specific niche areas of the business world, and they set the topics and ask the questions that are of utmost importance in today's frantically evolving world. The US (and the world) is currently at a deeply critical time in its history, and we're at the forefront of it, speaking directly with and to the board directors who have the power to enact real change. In an earlier life, I was a full-time editor for jewelry trade publisher The JCK Group, and it was there that I developed a deep love for and fascination with antique jewelry. Post-JCK, I wrote a column about antique and estate jewelry for the blog thehairpin.com (RIP!), and in 2019 I relaunched it as Dearest, a monthly newsletter via Substack. Each issue of Dearest focuses on a number of pieces I've cherry-picked from upcoming auctions and dealer websites, usually because they have an interesting backstory that I can dig into further and share with my readers (or, sometimes, they're just really fricking pretty). Dearest is irreverent — I AM writing it for fun, after all — but it still reveres the history and craftsmanship of tiny objects that very often tell us the bigger stories of their age. I love to write about things that excite me, and hopefully they'll excite other people, too. Sign up here: https://dearest.substack.com/ My specialties include multi-tasking project management: writing, editing, print and web design, layout, production, photo shoot wrangling, proofreading, illustration, ad trafficking, and acting as an internal and external communications liaison.