An Evening with Piper Kerman, Author of Orange Is the New Black

Even if you were not among the 105 million people who watched at least one episode of the Netflix series , you probably heard about it. The record-breaking, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning show ran for seven seasons, starting in 2013.

This unflinching series about incarcerated women was based on Piper Kerman’s best-selling memoir, . The book chronicles her 13 months as an inmate in a minimum-security federal Pr*son after she had been convicted of charges related to drug trafficking. 

On Wednesday, March 4, at 7 p.m., Kerman will be our speaker at Arts & Culture. Now a prominent crusader for criminal justice and Pr*son reform, she will discuss her own  experience and how it relates to mass incarceration in America and increasing state violence. She’ll also detail what she calls “the curious process” of adapting her memoir into the groundbreaking Netflix series and talk about her work teaching writing in a men’s state Pr*son, the subject of her next book.

Tickets for Kerman’s illustrated talk are $5 for club members and students and $10 for non-members. Seating will be limited, so please register early.

A graduate of Smith College who describes herself as “WASPy,” Kerman was not the typical inmate. As she told The New York Times, “We’ve constructed a carceral system that’s focused disproportionately on poor people of color.” Yet her book and the Netflix series do not tell the usual fish-out-of-water stories. Instead, they explore the lives of Kerman’s fellow inmates, highlighting their friendships and families, mental illnesses and substance abuse issues, and cliques and codes of behavior.

“American prisons and jails are harsh, horrible, incredibly punitive places because that’s how we built them to be,” Kerman says.  “One of the most important things about the series is that it shows beautiful moments of humanity and kindness. That’s the reason that it has inspired such passionate devotion.”

Since the publication of her book in 2010 and the airing of the Netflix show, Kerman has spoken across the country to audiences ranging from college students to probation officers, judges, and members of organizations focused on criminal justice. She has testified before Congressional committees and spoken at the White House. She is widely praised for her ability to introduce herself as a former criminal and present her unusual history with honesty, humor, and introspection while still calling attention to the complex issues affecting incarcerated women and their families. These include the need for better conditions for women inside prisons and more support for them when they leave.

Kerman, who now lives in Berkeley, serves on the board of directors of the the Women’s Pr*son Association and the advisory boards of the PEN America Writing For Justice Fellowship, InsideOUT Writers, Healing Broken Circles, and JustLeadershipUSA. Locally, she chairs the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Book Festival.

Whether or not you have read Orange Is the New Black or seen any of the 91 episodes of the show, you won’t want to miss this very special evening with Piper Kerman.

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