Orange is the New Black Author, Piper Kerman – This event is SOLD OUT.

To Speak at the University of the District of Columbia

Bestselling author, memoirist, and prison reform activist, Piper Kerman, will speak at the University of the District of Columbia on Tuesday, September 23, 2014.

Now in its second season, the hit Netflix show, “Orange is the New Black,” based on Kerman’s memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, recounts the 15 months that she spent in the Danbury Correctional Facility for a crime she had committed ten years prior as a very brief, very careless dalliance in the world of drug trafficking. The stories of the women she met while in prison raise issues of friendship and family, mental illness, the odd cliques and codes of behavior, the role of religion, the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailor, and the almost complete lack of guidance for life after prison.

The original Netflix series was created by Jenji Kohan, creator of Showtime’s “Weed’s,” and has been called “the best TV show about prison ever made” by the Washington Post.  It was lauded by Time’s TV critic James Poniewozik for “the stunningly matter-of-fact way it uses the prison to create one of TV’s most racially and sexually diverse—and as important, complex—dramas [and how it] contrasts the power and class dynamics inside the prison with those outside the prison.”

Kerman has delivered lectures to campuses across the country, and has also spoken to groups that include the American Correctional Association’s Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force, federal probation officers, public defenders, justice reform advocates and volunteers, and formerly and currently incarcerated people. She serves on the board of the Women’s Prison Association.

Event Details (Updated)

Who: Piper Kerman
What: Bestselling Author Piper Kerman addresses students, faculty and staff and members of the UDC community
When: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 @ 7 p.m. (VIP Reception begins promptly at 6 p.m in Building 38, 2nd Floor)
Where: University of the District of Columbia (Theater of the Arts Auditorium)

*This event has sold out. 

(Be sure to click on the “events” radial button at the top. Then click on the drop down to register for the event.)

For more information on the event, contact the College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Dean,  Kemmell.watson@udc.edu or 202.274.5194.

The University of the District Columbia encourages all affiliates to utilize the University parking facility or use public transportation instead of parking in neighboring residential areas. The Van Ness Campus garage, which is located at 4200 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, DC 20008, is an automated facility that allows for 24/7 controlled access to the garage. For further information please visit https://www.udc.edu/parking/parking.