When I started Moonlight Editorial in January of 2020, I didn’t anticipate how frequently and how differently people would connect with our name. 

Some have shared that it makes them think of shining a light in the dark—similar to E.L. Doctorow’s metaphor for writing: “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

One of our early clients had a cat named Moonlight—which particularly delighted me. 

Our name was inspired by my work experience. It’s a reference to the practice of moonlighting, which is something I did for most of my career. ‍

The term has a simple definition: working a second job. A more romantic term than “side hustle,” it’s a practice that’s generally associated with creative people lending their skills to another employer during their free time—either for love or for money. It also evokes a nighttime setting, which is when some creative people do their best work.

For me, moonlighting went two ways. Art books were my first love of my career, so whenever I had the opportunity, I moonlit for book publishers, freelancing on photo books and editing illustrated anthologies. During the day, I led content teams at tech companies, where  I hired writers and editors to moonlight for me on various editorial projects. Doing so allowed me to tap into the vast and diverse talent, knowledge, and experience held by my network, and—as a result—to produce work that was fed by personal interest and expertise. A special few of these projects also led to long-term creative collaborations, which in turn became Moonlight’s first full-time hires. 

When I took the plunge to start my own agency, I wanted to both honor this part of my work history and signal that moonlighting is a fundamental part of how we operate. Moonlight’s model aims to capture a little bit of time from a lot of experts. For every client project, we source writers with professional expertise in the subject matter or first-hand experience with it. We also consider voice, and whose style is the best fit for the brand.

Given that most of the full-time team at Moonlight has also experienced moonlighting at various points in their work-lives, we collectively apply what we’ve learned by doing into the work experience we create for our collaborators. We aim to make the experience as seamless as possible for them, so they can focus on what they do best. As a result, we have a diverse and loyal network of freelancers who we love working with and who love working with us. 

Interested in working with us as a freelancer? Get in touch.

Interested in partnering with us on your next content project? We’d love to hear from you.