[Music]
one of the reasons we allow
once-in-a-while interviews this Piper is
deep inside a project we’ll talk about
in a minute and this definitely takes a
lot of headspace to be on the red
circles oh yeah she’s given a talk in
the past and let’s start there so you
and I met about three years ago at a
TEDx event imagine that a marion
correctional and it was hosted by
healing broken circles which is the
nonprofit that runs all of the programs
at Marion and started the TEDx there and
some things happened and all of a sudden
the next thing we knew this East Coast
girl is now living in Victorian village
yeah so tell us how that happened I
definitely live in Ohio because of TEDx
there’s no question about that yeah I
was invited to Ohio to come and
participate in a TEDx event that was
held in a prison and to our knowledge
the first prison in the world that ever
hosted a TEDx event and I came because I
was like huh that’s weird
I came also because I was invited by a
fellow smithy I went to a women’s
college called Smith College and while I
was there and ever since I left that
place
I’ve been schooled like you know when a
woman asks you to do something you know
good and important you do everything in
your power to say yes and if it’s a
smithy then you definitely say yes so
there was a smithy involved with with
TEDx and I was also curious because I
had never visited a men’s state prison
facility before and when we think about
the fact that America incarcerate smore
of its own people than any other nation
in the world any Society in human
history and we think about where the
majority of those prisoners are they are
in state prison systems and men’s state
prison systems or local jails so I
thought it was important to sort of take
that opportunity to go see that kind of
a place
and I was astounded it was actually the
first TEDx I’d ever attended you’ve been
to Marion correctional it’s a little
different than this vibe but not
entirely and the really amazing thing
about that TEDx program at Marion is
that it was a completely grassroots
ground-up thing some of the guys who
worked in the computer lab there with
healing broken circles you know they had
the the workers had downloaded you know
Bryan Stevenson’s TED talks and other
TED Talks for those guys to watch and
they were like we could do that can we
do that and the warden at that time is
the kind of guy who was like if you can
figure out how to do it do it and that’s
really profoundly unusual in a
correctional setting so I was really
blown away by the the things that I saw
and experienced while I was there the
people I met and I kept on thinking
about that place and about that
experience after I left Ohio and you
know I was like why is the warden like
that what are the guys doing right now I
kept thinking about it I came back to
speak at the Ohio State University and I
took that opportunity to go back for
another visit and over time you know I
just was really really curious so yeah
TEDx brought me here ultimately because
I made an offer to that warden and also
to the warden Ronnie Burke’s over at the
Ohio Reformatory for for women in
Marysville I said what if I come teach a
writing class here in Ohio and they were
really receptive to that and the Garry
Moore at the at the Ohio Department of
Corrections was was in favor and
supportive and that’s really tremendous
that’s why I’m here
yeah Ohio so and three years later
awesome so let’s just talk about the
classes actually in fact you left a
class early today with us yep so tell us
what you’re teaching
so I teach I mean I guess I could teach
you some other things but the only
practical thing I couldn’t teach a
fiction class I don’t actually know how
to write fiction I teach a narrative
nonfiction writing class so you know
some people might describe it as a
memoir class we sort of expand in a
couple of extra directions above and
beyond the the classic memoir function
but my students are writing true stories
drawn from their own lives from the
things that they have experienced from
the things that they’ve witnessed we
conduct the same class in the men’s and
women’s facility the first year that I
was here we spent reading 22 books that
are grounded in some way in questions
around mass incarceration so books by
people who had been incarcerated people
who had worked in prisons and jails you
know there’s an amazing book by a prison
librarian there’s a wonderful book
called New Jack about working as a
correctional officer we read those books
books ground you know some of the the
issues that circle around mass
incarceration like mental health issues
or substance use disorder but those 22
books we worked through because I felt
that one way or another my students
would be able to tap into the
experiences that those people were
sharing and relate them back to their
own experiences in ways that might be
quite direct or at least observational
and I hoped that the experience of
reading those narratives would also be
inspiring you know in terms of my
students feeling like hey if that person
did it I can do it too we read a book
called cooked by Jeff Henderson who was
a crack dealer once and is now a
celebrity chef you know and he and in
between spend some time in federal
prison and you know he’s a great example
of someone with a really interesting and
I
it’s a important story to tell who was
not sort of educated in a in a typical
way and who yet you know had this story
to tell and was able to tell it and I
wanted my students to be inspired to
tell their own stories because I think
they’re really important my story my
students have establishing the stories
as you can imagine like people you know
what we always talk about with story
structure is that stories need conflict
in order to really grab and hold our
attentions certainly my students have
had a lot of conflict in their lives and
sometimes at this very moment do so yeah
let me just jump in there because I want
to make sure we get to this one question
about your students mm-hmm so Piper’s in
a unique situation where she’s teaching
men on Fridays we Mondays women on
Fridays and men on Mondays very few
teachers teach both genders in solitaire
meaning like you’re only teaching one
and then the other if you teach at a
girls school you’re only teaching girls
mm-hmm so what’s the biggest difference
between teaching those two different
genders as they are together there are
some very market differences and then
there are some less market different
there are some similarities I again went
to a women’s college so not only am I
very at home in a funny way at
Marysville in terms of having had the
experience of being incarcerated
Marysville but but also that’s sort of
you know a classroom setting which is
all women is also very familiar to me we
teach the classical narrative structure
in class which means you identify a
protagonist you set them in motion in
some way you establish some sort of
desire on their part I always say you as
you identify your protagonist you get
them up a tree you throw rocks at them
and then somehow they get down out of
the tree and that’s the story and they
save the cat well maybe you know or they
fall out and break their neck
storia can have a tragic ending it can
have a happy ending but we teach that
that classical you know hero’s journey
protagonist its you know something that
is in almost every childhood story book
you ever read almost every movie you
know might follow that process we could
you could critique the choice to teach
it that way but we knew that we’d be
able to tap into what our students
already knew from mass media and every
other stories so the men really took
like fish to water to that hero’s
journey they had no they might have have
been depicted as villains at other times
in their life or even at this moment in
life when they’re in prison but they had
no trouble thinking about themselves as
the hero of the story funny and the
women and the women it took more coaxing
prodding you know promising cajoling to
move them to a place where they really
thought about their own perspective
driving the action of the story and that
is of course reflected in you know the
nature of the lives of the women who end
up in the criminal justice system
overwhelmingly victims of sexual abuse
or other physical abuse eighty to ninety
percent of women and girls who end up in
the system that’s true true
disproportionate suffering of mental
health problems or substance use
disorder so I think that’s one of the
reasons that it’s so important for my
students to have the opportunity to
think about themselves as the
protagonist and to think about
themselves as having a whole set of
desires and choices that drive the
action of the story I think that’s
important in reflection about what your
life has been up to this point and also
what your life is gonna be going forward
and if they’re anything and that they
all write about is there any one thing
that there are some through lines that
come through guns come up in a number of
the stories from both the men’s and the
women’s class in fascinating ways
sometimes and caring ways but the number
one
topic across both classes is people’s
Mother’s yeah and I am I am a mother now
I am the mother of a relatively young
child I’m a memoirist I am nervous far
and away number one topic so one of the
things you’re doing is the reason that
we allowed you not to have to give a
talk she’s actually in the middle of
writing her second book true that yeah I
I know she has I know she has a deadline
and we have we’re running we’re not
running out of time but I want to get to
a few more things the last time you were
in prison you didn’t know you were
writing a book
mm-hmm and now that you are in working
in prison you’re writing a book you want
to just tell us what the books are
because there’s actually two yeah so my
students have been working so hard and
they do tremendous work I have I’ve had
some exceptionally talented writers in
my classes so we will in the future
publish an anthology a collection of the
best writing from the classes yeah which
is great and and I am also writing about
this process about you know just
returning to prison about what it’s like
to pull this kind of a group together
and and how fascinating they are and why
they’re so important to me well I think
they’re so important to everybody else
to listen so I know it’s on the mind of
many audience members do you did you
expect the book to be such a hit show I
always say that every writer has to
fantasise success whatever success looks
like to them because otherwise you would
never ever finish I personally find the
process of writing excruciating some
people I guess may find it pleasurable
but it’s you know I know when I’m having
trouble actually literate when I’m
literally jumping out of my seat that
I’m on the right track but yeah I think
every writer has
to fantasize some kind of success
whatever it is whatever that means you
want to win a National Book Award I
guess that’s what you fantasize about
but I’m very very grateful that that
very creative provocative talented
diverse people wanted to participate in
that adaptation of the book it’s a
fascinating process I’m very very
fortunate are you still involved in it I
am a consultant on the show actually I
was I was just emailing today with where
we’re deep into shooting season six and
and I get they they they the threats you
can’t even imagine what they would do to
me I do I read scripts and I answer
questions and if I can’t answer a
question then I find somebody who can so
I’m like I didn’t Rob any banks but I
know someone who did
so so um it’s it would not be fair to
have this conversation without digging
into a few issues of real seriousness in
our community right now there’s been a
lot of conversation about victimizations
not being reported in the last few weeks
but the rates of violent victimizations
are probably even more startling and
what I found was from 2005 to 2010 59%
of all violent victimizations were not
reported so help us understand what’s
happening
yeah not report it at all right and
actually when you drill down on some of
those numbers from that period which is
pretty recent 29 percent of people who
were seriously harmed gunshot wounds
stab wounds broken bones did not report
that to the police
right there’s so if you look at those
numbers you know somebody who was robbed
at gunpoint or you know harmed in some
of their ways sexually assaulted the
choice not to trust the system not to
trust police prosecutors judges to do
the right thing to be able to deliver on
the promise of justice has to concern us
all because that is a lot of harmed
people walking around in the community
dealing with trauma dealing with pain on
their own right when we think about
substance use disorder and mental health
problems those things are directly
connected to trauma and so the stakes of
having a criminal justice system that so
many people do not trust are very high
for all of us even those of us who are
fortunate enough perhaps not to have
been harmed not to have been victimized
we all live together I think people
don’t know
how serious this trust problem is even
though we all see and watch with horror
sometimes viral videos of cilantro
Castile being killed by a Minneapolis
police officer in front of his
girlfriend and their four-year-old child
you know this was a beloved school
worker who was killed in a traffic stop
and that’s a story that has far too many
similar stories going on there you know
we have we invest an enormous amount of
power in police in prosecutors in judges
in all of the law enforcement actors who
work in the system they wield an
enormous enormous amount of power over
other people’s lives and when we can’t
trust those either those individuals or
those systems the consequences for all
of us are very serious and I think we
see that reflected in those numbers so
many people who are victimized who don’t
trust the system enough to seek justice
healing or safety via those avenues it
must concern us and the flipside is that
what we find increasingly is that it’s
harder and harder to hold those players
accountable right it’s hard to hold
police accountable it’s hard to hold
prosecutors accountable I could I
started to make a list backstage and I
was like this list is too long I’m gonna
I’m gonna people are just gonna glaze
over but there are there is a very
lengthy disturbing list of police
misconduct prosecutorial misconduct that
goes without accountability you know my
students are being held accountable in
very serious ways the United States has
the most punitive criminal legal system
of all Western democracies
so you can check that box we’re very
serious about punishment in this country
and yet were not that serious about
accountability and so we see a real
asymmetry when it comes to trust so when
you were in prison for a year and as
reflected in your book trust was a
pretty significant theme at least in the
beginning yeah who can I trust can I
trust myself to say the right things
can I trust the food I’m eating right
tell us how you ultimately came to
trusting that environment while you were
there yeah I mean Trust is really about
finding your own true north like having
some trust in yourself to make the right
call
also trusting yourself to learn from
making the wrong call right in other
words you you learn more from your
failures that’s my six-word memoir you
learn more from your yeah failures and
you know interrogating your own failures
is one of the ways that you learn how to
trust yourself I think you know
acknowledging you know you know taking
responsibility for your failures but
also sort of interrogating them how can
I do better and I think when you have
that kind of solid ground to stand on
then you can make good decisions about
others and you know we are all connected
to one another that is the thing that
was so apparent to me right from the
jump even you know my first day
incarcerated you know I didn’t know who
I could trust or who I couldn’t trust
but I knew that I had to find someone
who I could trust you can’t navigate
this life disconnected from others you
have to be able to forge those bonds of
trust make yourself vulnerable honor
other people’s vulnerability and that’s
what starts to forge those bonds when we
when we’re we’re kind in the face of
vulnerability and when we’re brave
enough to display it ourselves
yeah so when we go in to interrogate our
failures we’ll think of you
be gentle with yourselves though yeah
Piper thank you so much for joining us
at EDX and thank you all for being a
great
[Applause]
one of the reasons we allow
once-in-a-while interviews this Piper is
deep inside a project we’ll talk about
in a minute and this definitely takes a
lot of headspace to be on the red
circles oh yeah she’s given a talk in
the past and let’s start there so you
and I met about three years ago at a
TEDx event imagine that a marion
correctional and it was hosted by
healing broken circles which is the
nonprofit that runs all of the programs
at Marion and started the TEDx there and
some things happened and all of a sudden
the next thing we knew this East Coast
girl is now living in Victorian village
yeah so tell us how that happened I
definitely live in Ohio because of TEDx
there’s no question about that yeah I
was invited to Ohio to come and
participate in a TEDx event that was
held in a prison and to our knowledge
the first prison in the world that ever
hosted a TEDx event and I came because I
was like huh that’s weird
I came also because I was invited by a
fellow smithy I went to a women’s
college called Smith College and while I
was there and ever since I left that
place
I’ve been schooled like you know when a
woman asks you to do something you know
good and important you do everything in
your power to say yes and if it’s a
smithy then you definitely say yes so
there was a smithy involved with with
TEDx and I was also curious because I
had never visited a men’s state prison
facility before and when we think about
the fact that America incarcerate smore
of its own people than any other nation
in the world any Society in human
history and we think about where the
majority of those prisoners are they are
in state prison systems and men’s state
prison systems or local jails so I
thought it was important to sort of take
that opportunity to go see that kind of
a place
and I was astounded it was actually the
first TEDx I’d ever attended you’ve been
to Marion correctional it’s a little
different than this vibe but not
entirely and the really amazing thing
about that TEDx program at Marion is
that it was a completely grassroots
ground-up thing some of the guys who
worked in the computer lab there with
healing broken circles you know they had
the the workers had downloaded you know
Bryan Stevenson’s TED talks and other
TED Talks for those guys to watch and
they were like we could do that can we
do that and the warden at that time is
the kind of guy who was like if you can
figure out how to do it do it and that’s
really profoundly unusual in a
correctional setting so I was really
blown away by the the things that I saw
and experienced while I was there the
people I met and I kept on thinking
about that place and about that
experience after I left Ohio and you
know I was like why is the warden like
that what are the guys doing right now I
kept thinking about it I came back to
speak at the Ohio State University and I
took that opportunity to go back for
another visit and over time you know I
just was really really curious so yeah
TEDx brought me here ultimately because
I made an offer to that warden and also
to the warden Ronnie Burke’s over at the
Ohio Reformatory for for women in
Marysville I said what if I come teach a
writing class here in Ohio and they were
really receptive to that and the Garry
Moore at the at the Ohio Department of
Corrections was was in favor and
supportive and that’s really tremendous
that’s why I’m here
yeah Ohio so and three years later
awesome so let’s just talk about the
classes actually in fact you left a
class early today with us yep so tell us
what you’re teaching
so I teach I mean I guess I could teach
you some other things but the only
practical thing I couldn’t teach a
fiction class I don’t actually know how
to write fiction I teach a narrative
nonfiction writing class so you know
some people might describe it as a
memoir class we sort of expand in a
couple of extra directions above and
beyond the the classic memoir function
but my students are writing true stories
drawn from their own lives from the
things that they have experienced from
the things that they’ve witnessed we
conduct the same class in the men’s and
women’s facility the first year that I
was here we spent reading 22 books that
are grounded in some way in questions
around mass incarceration so books by
people who had been incarcerated people
who had worked in prisons and jails you
know there’s an amazing book by a prison
librarian there’s a wonderful book
called New Jack about working as a
correctional officer we read those books
books ground you know some of the the
issues that circle around mass
incarceration like mental health issues
or substance use disorder but those 22
books we worked through because I felt
that one way or another my students
would be able to tap into the
experiences that those people were
sharing and relate them back to their
own experiences in ways that might be
quite direct or at least observational
and I hoped that the experience of
reading those narratives would also be
inspiring you know in terms of my
students feeling like hey if that person
did it I can do it too we read a book
called cooked by Jeff Henderson who was
a crack dealer once and is now a
celebrity chef you know and he and in
between spend some time in federal
prison and you know he’s a great example
of someone with a really interesting and
I
it’s a important story to tell who was
not sort of educated in a in a typical
way and who yet you know had this story
to tell and was able to tell it and I
wanted my students to be inspired to
tell their own stories because I think
they’re really important my story my
students have establishing the stories
as you can imagine like people you know
what we always talk about with story
structure is that stories need conflict
in order to really grab and hold our
attentions certainly my students have
had a lot of conflict in their lives and
sometimes at this very moment do so yeah
let me just jump in there because I want
to make sure we get to this one question
about your students mm-hmm so Piper’s in
a unique situation where she’s teaching
men on Fridays we Mondays women on
Fridays and men on Mondays very few
teachers teach both genders in solitaire
meaning like you’re only teaching one
and then the other if you teach at a
girls school you’re only teaching girls
mm-hmm so what’s the biggest difference
between teaching those two different
genders as they are together there are
some very market differences and then
there are some less market different
there are some similarities I again went
to a women’s college so not only am I
very at home in a funny way at
Marysville in terms of having had the
experience of being incarcerated
Marysville but but also that’s sort of
you know a classroom setting which is
all women is also very familiar to me we
teach the classical narrative structure
in class which means you identify a
protagonist you set them in motion in
some way you establish some sort of
desire on their part I always say you as
you identify your protagonist you get
them up a tree you throw rocks at them
and then somehow they get down out of
the tree and that’s the story and they
save the cat well maybe you know or they
fall out and break their neck
storia can have a tragic ending it can
have a happy ending but we teach that
that classical you know hero’s journey
protagonist its you know something that
is in almost every childhood story book
you ever read almost every movie you
know might follow that process we could
you could critique the choice to teach
it that way but we knew that we’d be
able to tap into what our students
already knew from mass media and every
other stories so the men really took
like fish to water to that hero’s
journey they had no they might have have
been depicted as villains at other times
in their life or even at this moment in
life when they’re in prison but they had
no trouble thinking about themselves as
the hero of the story funny and the
women and the women it took more coaxing
prodding you know promising cajoling to
move them to a place where they really
thought about their own perspective
driving the action of the story and that
is of course reflected in you know the
nature of the lives of the women who end
up in the criminal justice system
overwhelmingly victims of sexual abuse
or other physical abuse eighty to ninety
percent of women and girls who end up in
the system that’s true true
disproportionate suffering of mental
health problems or substance use
disorder so I think that’s one of the
reasons that it’s so important for my
students to have the opportunity to
think about themselves as the
protagonist and to think about
themselves as having a whole set of
desires and choices that drive the
action of the story I think that’s
important in reflection about what your
life has been up to this point and also
what your life is gonna be going forward
and if they’re anything and that they
all write about is there any one thing
that there are some through lines that
come through guns come up in a number of
the stories from both the men’s and the
women’s class in fascinating ways
sometimes and caring ways but the number
one
topic across both classes is people’s
Mother’s yeah and I am I am a mother now
I am the mother of a relatively young
child I’m a memoirist I am nervous far
and away number one topic so one of the
things you’re doing is the reason that
we allowed you not to have to give a
talk she’s actually in the middle of
writing her second book true that yeah I
I know she has I know she has a deadline
and we have we’re running we’re not
running out of time but I want to get to
a few more things the last time you were
in prison you didn’t know you were
writing a book
mm-hmm and now that you are in working
in prison you’re writing a book you want
to just tell us what the books are
because there’s actually two yeah so my
students have been working so hard and
they do tremendous work I have I’ve had
some exceptionally talented writers in
my classes so we will in the future
publish an anthology a collection of the
best writing from the classes yeah which
is great and and I am also writing about
this process about you know just
returning to prison about what it’s like
to pull this kind of a group together
and and how fascinating they are and why
they’re so important to me well I think
they’re so important to everybody else
to listen so I know it’s on the mind of
many audience members do you did you
expect the book to be such a hit show I
always say that every writer has to
fantasise success whatever success looks
like to them because otherwise you would
never ever finish I personally find the
process of writing excruciating some
people I guess may find it pleasurable
but it’s you know I know when I’m having
trouble actually literate when I’m
literally jumping out of my seat that
I’m on the right track but yeah I think
every writer has
to fantasize some kind of success
whatever it is whatever that means you
want to win a National Book Award I
guess that’s what you fantasize about
but I’m very very grateful that that
very creative provocative talented
diverse people wanted to participate in
that adaptation of the book it’s a
fascinating process I’m very very
fortunate are you still involved in it I
am a consultant on the show actually I
was I was just emailing today with where
we’re deep into shooting season six and
and I get they they they the threats you
can’t even imagine what they would do to
me I do I read scripts and I answer
questions and if I can’t answer a
question then I find somebody who can so
I’m like I didn’t Rob any banks but I
know someone who did
so so um it’s it would not be fair to
have this conversation without digging
into a few issues of real seriousness in
our community right now there’s been a
lot of conversation about victimizations
not being reported in the last few weeks
but the rates of violent victimizations
are probably even more startling and
what I found was from 2005 to 2010 59%
of all violent victimizations were not
reported so help us understand what’s
happening
yeah not report it at all right and
actually when you drill down on some of
those numbers from that period which is
pretty recent 29 percent of people who
were seriously harmed gunshot wounds
stab wounds broken bones did not report
that to the police
right there’s so if you look at those
numbers you know somebody who was robbed
at gunpoint or you know harmed in some
of their ways sexually assaulted the
choice not to trust the system not to
trust police prosecutors judges to do
the right thing to be able to deliver on
the promise of justice has to concern us
all because that is a lot of harmed
people walking around in the community
dealing with trauma dealing with pain on
their own right when we think about
substance use disorder and mental health
problems those things are directly
connected to trauma and so the stakes of
having a criminal justice system that so
many people do not trust are very high
for all of us even those of us who are
fortunate enough perhaps not to have
been harmed not to have been victimized
we all live together I think people
don’t know
how serious this trust problem is even
though we all see and watch with horror
sometimes viral videos of cilantro
Castile being killed by a Minneapolis
police officer in front of his
girlfriend and their four-year-old child
you know this was a beloved school
worker who was killed in a traffic stop
and that’s a story that has far too many
similar stories going on there you know
we have we invest an enormous amount of
power in police in prosecutors in judges
in all of the law enforcement actors who
work in the system they wield an
enormous enormous amount of power over
other people’s lives and when we can’t
trust those either those individuals or
those systems the consequences for all
of us are very serious and I think we
see that reflected in those numbers so
many people who are victimized who don’t
trust the system enough to seek justice
healing or safety via those avenues it
must concern us and the flipside is that
what we find increasingly is that it’s
harder and harder to hold those players
accountable right it’s hard to hold
police accountable it’s hard to hold
prosecutors accountable I could I
started to make a list backstage and I
was like this list is too long I’m gonna
I’m gonna people are just gonna glaze
over but there are there is a very
lengthy disturbing list of police
misconduct prosecutorial misconduct that
goes without accountability you know my
students are being held accountable in
very serious ways the United States has
the most punitive criminal legal system
of all Western democracies
so you can check that box we’re very
serious about punishment in this country
and yet were not that serious about
accountability and so we see a real
asymmetry when it comes to trust so when
you were in prison for a year and as
reflected in your book trust was a
pretty significant theme at least in the
beginning yeah who can I trust can I
trust myself to say the right things
can I trust the food I’m eating right
tell us how you ultimately came to
trusting that environment while you were
there yeah I mean Trust is really about
finding your own true north like having
some trust in yourself to make the right
call
also trusting yourself to learn from
making the wrong call right in other
words you you learn more from your
failures that’s my six-word memoir you
learn more from your yeah failures and
you know interrogating your own failures
is one of the ways that you learn how to
trust yourself I think you know
acknowledging you know you know taking
responsibility for your failures but
also sort of interrogating them how can
I do better and I think when you have
that kind of solid ground to stand on
then you can make good decisions about
others and you know we are all connected
to one another that is the thing that
was so apparent to me right from the
jump even you know my first day
incarcerated you know I didn’t know who
I could trust or who I couldn’t trust
but I knew that I had to find someone
who I could trust you can’t navigate
this life disconnected from others you
have to be able to forge those bonds of
trust make yourself vulnerable honor
other people’s vulnerability and that’s
what starts to forge those bonds when we
when we’re we’re kind in the face of
vulnerability and when we’re brave
enough to display it ourselves
yeah so when we go in to interrogate our
failures we’ll think of you
be gentle with yourselves though yeah
Piper thank you so much for joining us
at EDX and thank you all for being a
great
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: