Late one night in May 2021 during a global pandemic, fourteen-year-old Maya Logan Eileraas ran away to live with their girlfriend in Bel Air. “Nothing left to lose,” they posted on social media. Searching for their own truths around identity, home, family, world, and belonging, Maya Logan was fiercely determined to author a new life.

After six months on the run from DCFS custody, hospital emergency rooms, adolescent psychiatric wards, police cars, strangers’ apartments, ambulances, and temporary shelters, Maya Logan was found unconscious in a group home in north Los Angeles.

Chasing Spirits honors the audacity and integrity of Maya Logan’s chosen path and the creative expressions that sustained them: intricate brushstrokes on canvas, poetic verses echoing their deepest thoughts, melodies strummed in solitude, and the midnight aromas of freshly baked confections. Centering Maya Logan’s novel, penned during the isolation of remote learning, as a testament to their profound introspection and boundless imagination, Chasing Spirits brings together investigative journalism, personal reflections, short stories, artwork, social media posts, and secret journals.

More than a tribute to an extraordinary teenager’s bold journey into the wild, gift for storytelling, and art of self-invention, Chasing Spirits is a stunning meditation on what it means to love, a nuanced exploration of the infinite complexity of the human psyche, and an unflinching look at a rebel heart whose light was extinguished too soon.

Karina Eileraas Karakus is a published author and professor with over a decade of teaching experience at UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley, and Pomona College. Her teaching, research, and writing address gender and sexuality, nationalism, revolution, film, fashion, visual culture, social media, digital citizenship, bodily protest, sexual violence, transnational trauma, global reproductive health and politics, and diaspora, centering especially on the Middle East & North Africa. Eileraas Karakus is the author of Between Image and identity: Transnational Fantasy, Symbolic Violence, and Feminist Misrecognition. She has also published and presented research on Turkish modest fashion influencers, nude protest and digital citizenship in the MENA region, 1990s girl bands, Marilyn Monroe and celebrity culture. Beyond academia, Karina consults on global gender equity and DEIA strategy, sexual and gender-based violence, mental health, cultural inclusivity, free speech and inclusive content curation on digital media platforms.

Annelise Eileraas is majoring in Political Science at Barnard College of Columbia University ‘25, where she leads dance and media organizations. After a semester researching dance and revolution in Tunisia as well as migration and mobility in Italy, she aims to strengthen international media and dance partnerships. As a WNYC Radio Rookie, she investigated the teenage mental health crisis in America through the breakdown of integrated family protective services and social support networks during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has been a PEN America Freedom of Expression Fellow and delegate to the 2023 UNESCO World Press Freedom Day and 2021 UN Commission on the Status of Women with Girls Learn International-Ms. Foundation. She also mentors youth in coding, dance, and activism movements both creative and innovative as Assistant Instructor with STEM From Dance.