A Free, Virtual writing retreat
WriteHive Lite
Oct 12 - Oct 13, 2024
Meet the Editors
Keir Alekseii
Editor
Keir Alekseii is an associate agent with Azantian Literary Agency. She is an educator and anti-GBV activist born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, a twin island country in the West Indies. Keir is a writer, gamer, lover of folklore, and former research scientist. As a neurodivergent, queer person of color, Keir is invested in discovering engaging work with similar representation, and passionate about creating space for voices not often recognized. Keir still lives in T&T with her partner and five rambunctious felines who believe they are the best thing on Twitter, because they are.
Keir is passionate about getting your MS structurally sound and polished. She has a background as a writing mentor and freelance editor and engages in continuous learning. They focus on author intention: the goal is always to develop a story the author is passionate about and to strengthen the story the author is trying to tell. This means editorial decisions are a discussion, and not unidirectional feedback.
Editorial pet peeve: shoehorning a story into a place it doesn’t want to go.
Rhonda Jackson Garcia
Editor
Rhonda Jackson Garcia, AKA RJ Joseph, is an award winning, Stoker Award™ and Shirley Jackson Award nominated, Texas based academic and creative writer/professor/editor whose writing regularly focuses on the intersections of gender and race in the horror and romance genres and popular culture.
She has had works published in various applauded venues, including two fiction anthologies of Black, female horror writers, Sycorax’s Daughters, and Black Magic Women, as well as the 2020 Halloween issue of Southwest Review and The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Series.
Rhonda is also an instructor at The Speculative Fiction Academy and the co-host of the Genre Blackademia podcast. She is also working with Raw Dog Screaming Press, editing a new novella line, The Selected Papers for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena.
She occasionally peeks out online through social media from @rjacksonjoseph or at www.rhondajacksonjoseph.com
Hannah Kates
Editor
Ever since being swooped into the secret society printing contraband pulp magazines from nineteenth-century catacombs, Hannah Kates has sworn to use her editing powers for chaotic good. As a ghostwriter, editor, story-seller, and travelling troubadour, she’s penned work everywhere from the strategic offices of the Pentagon to the haunted streets of Savannah—which are crooked due to all the rotting dead people.
With ten years of professional editing under her belt in both the traditional and indie spheres, Hannah provides bespoke, mentor-based editing services to writers in all walks of life—many of whom are now agented, published, and/or winning kickass awards. She encourages her authors to prends garde of their mental health and focus on processes rather than products.
Hannah loves editing because she knows a dirty little secret: Publishing is merely a matter of time. The real key is to keep falling in love with storycraft.
Chyina Powell
Editor
Chyina Powell is a multi-genre author as well as a freelance editor at Powell Editorial as well as the founder of the nonprofit organization, The Women of Color Writers’ Circle which offers a safe space for women of color to hone their craft. She has worked with wonderful teams such as Jeff and Ann VanderMeer as well as first time authors to finish their novels and share their stories with the world.
In her free time, she can be found reading speculative fiction, drinking tea or working on her own manuscripts. She also enjoys crafting bookish gifts from time to time!
Justine Manzano
Editor
Justine is a lover of stories, dedicated to helping writers hone their craft. She’s worked as an acquisitions editor, content editor, and line editor at small publishing companies and in the corporate sector, helping people grammar it up in their legal briefs and corporate process documents. She was a member of The Inkwell Council and CraftQuest, has worked as an editor for Query Connection and Writer in Motion, is an Editor-in-Residence here at WriteHive, and runs a freelance editing business, Manzano Editorial. She is also the geeky author of the Keys & Guardians Series, and Never Say Never.
As an editor, Justine will spend equal time pointing out where you can improve and fangirling over your work. She loves coaching and enjoys helping at every step of the process, from brainstorming to dealing with the industry at large, and everywhere in between. Justine enjoys a more lax, comfortable relationship with her clients. She strives to recreate the feeling of buddies, talking and writing in their PJs with a cup of hot cocoa.
