Nightstand
Piper Kerman
We caught up with Kerman, the author of Orange Is the New Black, the bestselling memoir that inspired an award-winning Netflix series, by phone a few days before her appearance at Eckerd College, where she drew a crowd of 1,500. Starting in 2004, Kerman served 13 months in a federal women's prison after pleading guilty to laundering money, and from that experience she has become a leading advocate for prison reform, particularly for women. One memory from her time in prison has been impossible to shake, she told us. "Anytime I think of the (prison) visiting room and seeing the moms with kids, especially very young ones, that is a really indelible image that I can't ever forget,'' she said.
Kerman, 45, has testified before the U.S. Senate on solitary confinement of women prisoners and is the recipient of the 2014 Justice Trailblazer Award from the John Jay College Center on Media, Crime and Justice.
What's on your nightstand?
I've got a pile, but a good one is Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward. It's a memoir of family in the Deep South, about African-American women, and how they experience the loss of so many men. The losses are by death, by the prison system, drugs.
Who would you recommend Jesmyn Ward's book to?
It's sad, but it's powerful. I think I would encourage everyone to read it. It's really a meditation on family, masculinity. She is a beautiful writer.
Any others in that pile you'd like to recommend?
A project I'm working on right now in Ohio is with prisoners, men and women, on their writing. So, in terms of that, I've got Avi Steinberg's Running the Books. He's a prison librarian and he shares his very interesting experience.
Contact Piper Castillo at pcastillo@tampabay.com or (727) 445-4163. Follow @Florida_PBJC.