Vancouver Magazine
Opening Soon: A Japanese-Style Bagel Shop in Downtown Vancouver
The Broadway/Cambie Corridor Has Become a Hub for Excellent Chinese Restaurants
Flaky, Fluffy and Freaking Delicious: Vancouver’s Top Fry Bread and Bannock
Protected: The Wick is Lit for This Fraser Valley Winery
Wine Collab of the Week: The Best Bottle to Welcome a Vancouver Spring
Naked Malt Blended Malt Scotch Whisky Celebrates Versatility and Spirit
The Orpheum to Launch ‘Silent Movie Mondays’ This Spring
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (March 27-April 2)
Meet Missy D, the Bilingual Vancouver Hip Hop Artist for the Whole Family
What It’s Like to Get Lost on a Run With a Pro Trail Runner
8 Things to Do in Abbotsford (Even If It’s Pouring Rain)
Explore the Rockies by Rail with Rocky Mountaineer
The Future of Beauty: How One Medical Aesthetics Clinic is Changing the Game
4 Fashion Designers From African Fashion Week Vancouver to Put on Your Radar
Before Hibernation Season Ends: A Round-Up of the Coziest Shopping Picks
Let’s be clear from the get-go: Piper Kerman and Piper Chapman are two very different people. Though the real Piper Kerman and actor Taylor Schilling share a look (blond, tall, slim), the novelist proved to be a much more intellectual character than one might expect. An accomplished public speaker, the Ohio-based Kerman lectured as part of the Unique Lives speaker series, focusing more on the unbridled rise in U.S. female incarceration—650% in the last two decades— than the Netflix adaptation of her life (which she took with good humour).Stressing the value of the Elizabeth Fry foundation in working with both imprisoned and newly released females in the Greater Vancouver area, Kerman highlighted the implications that incarcerating a mother for a nonviolent crime have on her children: without a support system in B.C., children of a female offender has a 60% chance of being incarcerated themselves. The foundation offers both support and education for women trying to start a new life — a necessity, says Kerman, referring to her own release from jail. (She was pushed out the door 800 miles from her home, with only $28 in hand.)Encouraging attendees to donate any old literature to prison library services, the inmate turned institutional creative writing teacher explained the importance of contributing to local communities in need: “Inequality becomes intolerable when bonds are formed.” Indeed, of all the educational programs offered in B.C. prisons, a report from the Auditor General in January of this year found only one that reduces the likelihood of re-offending. The takeaway from the evening came in her concluding statement: “Judge others by their best day, not by their worst.”Season 3 of Orange Is the New Black debuts on Netflix June 12.