Piper Kerman

Piper Kerman is the author of the memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison. She serves on the board of directors of the Women’s Prison Association and the advisory boards of InsideOUT Writers, Healing Broken Circles, and JustLeadershipUSA. Ms. Kerman 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, and has spoken at the White House on re-entry and employment. 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 Ms. Kerman as a Champion of Justice in 2015. She teaches writing in two Ohio prisons as an Affiliate Instructor with Otterbein University.