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Cleary Wolters  

The Real-Life Inspiration for Alex Vause in "Orange is the New Black" & Author of "Out of Orange"

Catherine Cleary Wolters is the real-life inspiration for the character Nora Jansen in Piper Kerman's memoir and Alex Vause in the Netflix show Orange is the New Black. Piper Kerman spent 13 months in a Danbury, Connecticut, minimum-security prison beginning in 2004, an experience that formed the basis for Orange Is the New Black. Wolters, meanwhile, was charged with conspiracy to import heroin and served almost six years in a Dublin, California prison before being paroled in 2008. Wolters caught the writing bug early and began writing poetry before moving on to fiction and screenplays, writing extensively during her prison sentence. This is her first memoir and first published work. She is a software test engineer by profession and is currently working on her PhD in Information Assurance and Security. She lives in Cincinnati.

News


The Real Alex of Orange Is the New Black Speaks for the First Time: “I Was Not Piper’s First, and I Certainly Did Not Seduce Her”
Catherine Cleary Wolters can speak to many of the actual events behind the hit Netflix series Orange Is the New Black with a hard-won authority, but there is one detail that seems particularly crucial...
Q&A: The Real-Life Alex Vause Discusses Prison, Memoir 'Out of ...
Laura Prepon's character Alex Vause in 'Orange Is the New Black' is based on the real-life Cleary Wolters, who has written a memoir. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters.

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