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 and Peabody Award-winning original series for Netflix.

Piper works with Spitfire Strategies as a communications consultant with nonprofits, philanthropies, and other organizations working in the public interest. She 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 American Correctional Association’s Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force, federal probation officers, public defenders, justice reform advocates and volunteers, book clubs, and formerly and currently incarcerated people.

Piper serves on the board of the Women’s Prison Association, and 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.  She has spoken at the White House on re-entry and employment to help honor Champions of Change in the field.  In 2014 Piper 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 lecture, free and open to the public, will be Wednesday, March 25, 2015 beginning at 7:00 p.m. in the Anderson Student Center – Woulfe North & South.  The doors for the lecture will open at 6:30 p.m.  Books will be available for sale at the book signing and reception immediately following the lecture.

Parking will be available at the Anderson Parking Facility located at the corner of Cretin Ave. and Grand Ave.  Upon entering the ramp do not take a ticket you will need to swipe a credit card at the gate to enter. Upon leaving, you will swipe your credit card again to exit.  The length and cost of your stay is automatically determined by the times of your card swipes.

This event is sponsored by Student Diversity and Inclusion Services, University Lectures Committee, LOFTUS Diversity Grant, Faculty Development, Communication & Journalism, History Department, Luann Dummer Center for Women, Women's Studies, Office of Service-Learning & Civic Engagement, Faculty Development,  Sociology & Criminal Justice, American Culture & Difference, Justice & Peace Studies, and Division of Student Affairs