About Us

Hermon Joyner, Editor and Publisher
Hermon has had three main interests in life: writing, music, and photography. He grew up in Mississippi with an eclectic taste in music and began playing trumpet in elementary school and majored in music in college. Most of his professional life has been spent as a photographer, but he went back to college and acquired a Masters in Professional Writing. Hermon eventually became interested in folk music and bluegrass, and learned to play the fiddle and mandolin, after hearing Mark O’Connor and David Grisman in concert. He came to write music reviews for Audiophile Audition (audaud.com) from 2005 to 2011, and then began writing profiles and reviews for Mandolin Magazine in 2008 and continued until the magazine ceased publication in 2014. Hermon felt he wasn’t quite finished writing about the 8-string instrument, so he created The Mandolin Player online journal in 2015.

Kathy Monaghan, Graphic Design and Marketing
Kathy grew up in a very musical family, but while she maintains a deep appreciation for music, her own inclinations led her to a life in the visual arts. She has a Masters in Arts Education and has taught art in public schools and at the university level, and has worked in graphic design since high school. She is the author of You Can Weave!, a book about textile weaving for Davis Publications in Worcester, Massachusetts. Besides her work on The Mandolin Player, Kathy also works as the brand marketing director for a family-owned heritage business in Oregon.

If you have any ideas or leads for stories, or you are working on a project and want to get the word out, feel free to contact us or send us a press release. We are accepting CDs and videos for review, but be sure to contact us ahead of time, before you send us anything, to make sure it's a good fit for The Mandolin Player and/or The Americana Corner.