RIVER DONAGHEY IS A WRITER AND FILMMAKER BASED IN NYC.

His work explores cults, coercion, and the stories we invent to make sense of the world. He is the creator of Good Cult, an investigative podcast about his family’s New Age self-help cult, and is developing a stage show of the same name.

River has spent his career embedded in hidden worlds: a drunken, deadly horse race in Guatemala, dirtbag rockclimbers in Yosemite who stumbled across a crashed drug plane, and a South African YouTube cult obsessed with channeling Hitler.

He has appeared on WNYC’s On the Media and NPR’s All Things Considered.

He is currently Director of Development at NowThis. A Japanese fashion magazine once called him a "promising novice." That may have been an insult.