From BGSU OFFICE OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
Piper Kerman, best-selling author of “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison” will be on BGSU’s campus Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016 to discuss her book and her life story.
Kerman will be presenting as part of the Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories lecture series sponsored by BGSU University Libraries and its Leadership Council. Dinner will begin at 6:30 p.m. with the presentation following at 7:30 p.m. A VIP event will begin at 5:30 p.m. All events are hosted in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom of the Bowen-Thompson Student Union.
Tickets for the event are $30 for dinner and $100 for the VIP event and dinner. Tickets are available now at bgsu.edu/libraryevent.
Kerman’s book chronicles her 13 months spent in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. In her book she explores the experience of incarceration and the intersection of her life with the lives of the women she met while in prison: their friendships and families, mental illnesses and substance abuse issues, cliques and codes of behavior.
Since her release, Kerman has worked tirelessly to promote criminal justice reform. She serves on the board of the Women’s Prison Association, which provides preventative services for at-risk women, works to create alternatives to incarceration, advocates against practices like shackling during childbirth and offers programs to aid reentry into society. In her professional career as a communications consultant with Spitfire Strategies, she has worked on a number of criminal justice issues, including public defense reform, juvenile justice reform and the legal challenge to the “stop and frisk” laws in New York. She is a member of the advisory board for InsideOUT Writers.
Kerman’s memoir was adapted into a critically acclaimed Netflix original series of the same name by Jenji Kohan. The Emmy and Peabody Award-winning show has been called “the best TV show about prison ever made” by The Washington Post.
Guests with disabilities are requested to indicate if they need special services, assistance or appropriate modifications to fully participate in this event by contacting Disability Services, dss@bgsu.edu, 419-372-8495 prior to the event.
