Piper Kerman will speak in February as part of
the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture series.
COURTESY OF DEPAUW UNIVERSITY
The woman behind “Orange is the New Black” will come to DePauw University this spring.
Piper Kerman, 44, will speak to the DePauw and Greencastle communities in February as part of the Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture series. Her talk is titled “Lessons Learned Behind Bars.”
Kerman wrote her best selling memoir, “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison,” after serving a year in Danbury Correctional Facility for a drug-trafficking crime she committed while in university at Smith College. Her trial and conviction came 10 years after she committed the crime. The memoir hit the number one spot of the New York Times list of bestsellers and inspired the Emmy-award-winning Netflix series “Orange is the New Black.”
Now, Kerman works for prison reform through her role on the board of Women’s Prison Association, as well as traveling across the county to share her story. DePauw University will be her first stop in Indiana, but she has spoken at the White House and to groups such as American Correctional Association’s Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force, federal probation officers and former and current prisoners.
The 2014–2015 Ubben Lecture series kicks off October 4 with New York Times conservative communist David Brooks, with more events in the works.