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'Orange Is The New Black' In Federal Women's Prison Piper Kerman was bored with her middle class life — so she joined a group of artists-turned-drug smugglers. Her memoir, Orange Is The New Black: My Year In A Women's Prison, recounts her exotic life in the drug trade, her attempt to leave it behind, and her experience serving time with other women from all walks of life.

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'Orange Is The New Black' In Federal Women's Prison

Heard on Talk of the Nation

'Orange Is The New Black' In Federal Women's Prison

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Piper Kerman is now vice president at a Washington, D.C.-based communications firm that works with foundations and nonprofits. Sam Zalutsky hide caption

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Sam Zalutsky

Piper Kerman is now vice president at a Washington, D.C.-based communications firm that works with foundations and nonprofits.

Sam Zalutsky

Smith graduate Piper Kerman was bored with her middle class life — so she joined a group of bohemian artists-turned-drug smugglers. After traveling to exotic resorts and smuggling a suitcase packed with drug money from Chicago to Brussels, she broke free from the drug trade and found a new life, normal jobs and a blooming romance.

But 10 years later, federal officers knocked on her door. Kerman pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and money laundering and went on to serve time in a federal women's prison in Danbury, Conn.

In her memoir, Orange Is The New Black: My Year In A Women's Prison, Kerman recounts a year in which she learned to clean her cell with maxipads, to wire a light fixture, and to make prison cheesecake — all while finding camaraderie with women from all walks of life.