Bestselling author, memoirist and prison reform activist Piper Kerman is the featured speaker for the sold-out 11th Annual Power of the Purse®, taking place on Tuesday, May 19, at the Expo Center at the Crowne Plaza in Asheville.
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| Piper Kerman |
In her memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, Kerman recounts the year she spent in the Danbury Correctional Facility for a drug trafficking crime committed ten years prior. Her story is compelling, moving and often comical. It addresses societal issues such as friendship and family, mental illness, the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailer and the lack of guidance for life after prison. Kerman now advocates for prisoners' rights and sentencing reform.
Kerman has delivered lectures to campuses across the country and has 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. In February 2014, Kerman testified before a Senate Committee encouraging reassessment of solitary confinement as punishment in the penal system.
Event Schedule
10:30 Coffee Reception for Patrons & Sponsors
Noon Lunch & Presentation
2:00 Conclusion