This is the ninth episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.
Our author this time is New York Times best selling writer Piper Kerman. We spoke with her as she was touring the United States talking about her non-fiction book “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison” by Spiegel and Grau/Random House books, less than a year after the debut of the fictionalized Netflix program “Orange is the New Black” based on her life. This one-on-one was done in September of 2014.
Piper Kerman was born in Boston and had a family full of educators, attorneys, and doctors. But through a relationship she had with a girlfriend in her 20s, she became involved in the drug trade and was eventually convicted of felonious drug trafficking and money laundering. Her memoir of her time in federal prison became the book “Orange Is the New Black”. The on-screen version of her life in the most-watched series on Netflix that most people are familiar with is a little different than her reality.
We’ll learn about the differences between her lived experience and the adaptation, her post-incarceration pursuit of prison reform, and her life as a public speaker now on this episode of “Talking with Authors” from HEC Media and HEC Books.
Our host and interviewer this time is Brenda Madden.
HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri. With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.
Host and producer of this episode - Brenda Madden
Photography - Cecil Corbett and D.J. Rockwell
Editor and Graphics - Gregg Kopp
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Jayne Ballew & Helen Hedrick
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Editors - Paul Langdon
Podcast Host - Rod Milam
Special thanks to Maryville University and St. Louis Public Radio
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