Tori Telfer | Author, Lady Killers and Confident Women

“We judge women criminals more harshly. Women get judged twice: once for being a criminal and once for being a woman."

When you hear the names Anna Sorokin or Elizabeth Holmes, what comes to mind? Does it ever strike you as interesting that society has such a fascination with women con artists? That their trials inspire countless magazine articles, TV series, and even podcasts? Enter Tori Telfer, author of the book ‘Confident Women’ published by Harper Perennial, a collection of vignettes about some of the world’s most infamous female con artists. Released earlier this year as a sequel to ‘Lady Killers', her first book which the New York Times described as a "thrilling character study of the most diabolically complex, fascinating female psychopaths in history”, which was also published in Brazil, Poland, the UK, Spain, and Korea.

Tori graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing. After college, she worked in children's publishing and taught before going freelance. She is also the host of three podcasts about women who break the law: Criminal Broads on the Lit Hub Radio network, Red Flags on Investigation Discovery, and Why Women Kill, on CBS All Access. On this episode, host Eva Hartling catches up with Tori to discuss what makes women con artists unique, what draws other women to fantasize about emulating some of these criminals’ confidence, how gender bias affects the way women who commit crimes are perceived, and the continued high rates of incarceration for women in America.

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