NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Award-winning author Priya Hutner will take her acclaimed memoir, Chasing Nirvana: A Seeker’s Story of Love, Loss and Liberation, on a national book and speaking tour this fall, with appearances in New York City, Chicago, Highland Park, Brooklyn, and Lake Tahoe.

Winner of a 2026 National Indie Excellence Award, Chasing Nirvana chronicles Hutner’s decades inside a cult-like spiritual community and her eventual escape. Raised under the influence of a Brooklyn housewife turned guru, Hutner was drawn into a world of spiritual promises, bizarre rituals, and oppressive beliefs. Her quest for enlightenment ultimately became a struggle to untangle devotion from control and reclaim her own identity.

The national tour will bring Hutner into conversations with authors, memoirists, and prominent voices examining cults, high-control groups, belief, and belonging, including A Little Bit Culty podcast host Sarah Edmondson and two-time “Survivor” winner and bestselling author Parvati Shallow.

Event details available at priyahutner.com. 

~ Tahoe Literary Festival press release