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With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her.
Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424—one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules.
She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman’s story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison—why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they’re there.
The film adaptation was produced by Netflix and released in 2013.
(Summary from the publisher)
Piper Kerman is the author of the memoir 'Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison from Spiegel & Grau'.
The book has been adapted by Jenji Kohan into an Emmy Award-winning original series for Netflix, which ran for seven seasons.
Piper collaborates with nonprofits, philanthropies, and other organizations working in the public interest and serves on the board of directors of the Women’s Prison Association and the advisory boards of the PEN America Writing For Justice Fellowship, InsideOUT Writers, Healing Broken Circles and JustLeadershipUSA. Piper has spoken at the White House on re-entry and employment to help honor Champions of Change in the field, as well as the importance of arts in prisons and the unique conditions for women in the criminal justice system. She has been called as a witness by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights to testify on solitary confinement and women prisoners, and by the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs and Homeland Security Committee to testify about the federal Bureau of Prisons. Piper has also testified for the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security about conditions for women and girls in the criminal justice system.
In 2014 she was awarded the Justice Trailblazer Award from John Jay College’s Center on Media, Crime & Justice and the Constitutional Commentary Award from The Constitution Project; the Equal Justice Initiative recognized Piper as a Champion of Justice in 2015.
Piper is a frequent invited speaker to students of law, criminology, gender and women’s studies, sociology, and creative writing, and also to groups that include the International Association of Women Judges, the National Association of Counties, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Criminal Justice Association, the American Probation and Parole Association, the American Correctional Association’s Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force, public defenders, justice reform advocates, and formerly and currently incarcerated people. Piper has taught writing in Ohio state prisons as an Affiliate Instructor with Otterbein University. Piper is a graduate of Smith College. She lives in Northern California with her family.
(Biography provided by the author)
