Kerman's best-selling memoir about her experiences in prison, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, was published by Spiegel & Grau on April 6, 2010. ĭuring her sentence, she built her website 'The Pipe Bomb' to document her life behind bars. Starting in 2004, she served 13 months of a 15-month sentence at FCI Danbury, a minimum security prison located in Danbury, Connecticut.

In 1998, Kerman was indicted for money laundering and drug trafficking and she pled guilty. Kerman laundered money for the drug operation. In 1993, Kerman became romantically involved with Catherine Cleary Wolters (Nora Janson in her memoir: Laura Prepon's character Alex Vause in the series), a heroin dealer working for an alleged Nigerian kingpin. Kerman is a self-described WASP however, she had a paternal grandfather who was Russian-Jewish. She graduated from Swampscott High School in Swampscott, Massachusetts, in 1987, and Smith College in 1992. Kerman was born in Boston into a family with a number of attorneys, doctors and educators. She now works as a communication strategist for non-profit organizations. Since leaving prison, Kerman has spoken widely about women in prison and problems with the federal prison system. Her memoir of her prison experiences, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (2010), was adapted into the critically-acclaimed Netflix original comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black (2013). She was indicted in 1998 on charges of felonious money-laundering activities, and sentenced to 15 months' detention in a federal correctional facility, of which she eventually served 13 months. Piper Eressea Kerman (born September 28, 1969) is an American author.

Piper kerman