Chyina Powell of Virtual on Life, Lessons & Legacy

We recently had the chance to connect with Chyina Powell and have shared our conversation below.

Good morning Chyina, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
Integrity. Intelligence is important and you should be able to and willing to learn new things, however nothing comes before integrity. You can be an intelligent person or an enthusiastic person and have no morals or emotional intelligence. I have found that it is not only hard to work with those sorts of people, but it can be hard to be around them just in daily life. People without ethics always use the means to justify the ends and often hurt those around them because they don’t see them as important. Moreover, it’s important to have energy, sure, but people always have energy for the things they truly care about.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am an award-winning author, editor and founder. I began Powell Editorial in order to help emerging writers become published authors. I offer diverse services including sensitivity reading, developmental editing, and manuscript critiques and is always happy to share her knowledge of the publishing industry with her writers. Additionally, I am an advocate for diversity in publishing which led her to create the Women of Color Writers’ Circle Inc., a nonprofit organization that offers community and safe space to women of color writers globally regardless of genre or where they are in their writing career. I am currently working on spreading the word about proper representation in publishing and sharing diverse narratives.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. Who taught you the most about work?
This is a hard question, and I don’t believe I have a very good answer. If you mean “work” in the sense of my chosen career field, it would have to be between Ann Vandermeer and Dr. Julia Bloch at the University of Pennsylvania. But if you are talking about “work” in a more general sense, I believe that comes from familial relationships. However, I cannot say that one particular person taught me more or less, it is just that what they taught me were different things. My great-grandmother taught me a love of gardening, for example.

If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
It’s okay to not be okay.

Until my early adult years, I wore a mask and performed on a stage, pretending to be someone I am not. This is probably because of how I was raised and some of the trauma I experiences early on in life. I would tamp down on my emotions and try not to cry…in fact, I would try not to feel at all. But that just led to more unresolved issues and baggage that I had to unpack later in life. It led to not being able to trust others and not really knowing who I am as a person, which is something I would not wish on anyone.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
If I had to ask my best friend of twenty years now, she would probably say, “God, creativity, and kindness.” She has always been able to see the good qualities in me that I often shortchange or take for granted.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I believe I am doing what I was born to do. Most kids say that when they grow up they want to be a superhero or a firefighter or a ballerina. That was never me. I always wanted to be a professional reader. I have always loved books and stories and even the smell of old books that lingers on yellowed pages. I live for stories and new worlds and a safe haven to escape to or to spark my creativity…and books do that. When I grew up and realized that being an editor was probably the closest thing to being a professional reader, I knew that was what I wanted to do.

If I had stuck with what people told me to do, I would have probably been a lawyer, teacher, or some other job that didn’t feel right.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://powelleditorial.org
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/cyina_powell
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/chyinapowell
• Twitter: https://x.com/chyinap
• Other: Blog: https://abookishmind.substack.com
  KoFi: https://ko-fi.com/chyinap

Image Credits
Chyina Powell