Chandika

Collaborative Writer, Developmental Editor, and Literary Coach

Chandika is the pen name of Kathryn Liedel, a collaborative writer, editor and coach who has worked on over 150 books. Her clients have been published by Atria Books, Running Press, Hay House, Sounds True, Shambhala Press, New World Library, North Atlantic Books, Llewellyn, and Ten Speed Press. As a seasoned world traveler and lifelong interspiritual student, Chandika’s background includes the eight-limbed path of yoga, the ceremonial and therapeutic use of entheogens, and esoteric mysticism from a variety of traditions. She is particularly interested in promoting cutting-edge ideas around health, consciousness, psychology, sexuality, feminism, food systems, social justice, trauma, and death. 

With over a decade in the publishing industry, Chandika has been honored to work with authors dedicated to evolving the way readers think through transformational nonfiction, soul-baring memoir, and books that touch upon both. She is perpetually on the lookout for big ideas that make their impact by shifting a paradigm. She feels at home among uncommon people and narratives, yet specializes in coupling her innate dedication to wildness with the strong structural foundation that readers and publishers crave. Ever the Millenial, she is still attached to the Oxford comma and makes liberal use of the em-dash.

Though from time to time you’ll catch her in the Pacific Northwest, Chandika most often writes from a European time zone.