Nikki Pope was born in Brookhaven, but she’s lived all over — from Chicago to Vienna. She’s now an attorney in California but on Thursday she returned with lifelong friend Courtney Lance to share their new book at a signing event in the State Room on Cherokee Street.

The book, “Pruno, Ramen and a side of Hope: Stories of Surviving Wrongful Conviction” started out as a prison food cookbook, but it evolved into a series of stories chronicling the lives of 10 men and women — and their families — who have been convicted of a crime and later exonerated.

“It’s a book that documents the everyday experiences of ordinary people pulled from their lives, from everyone and everything they know, accused of unspeakable crimes and sent to prison for longer than they can comprehend,” Cookie Ridolfi, founder of the Northern California Innocence Project, wrote in the book’s forward.

The NCIP is a non-profit project out of Santa Clara University in California. Pope, though she said her background as an attorney is not criminal defense, is also on the advisory board for NCIP.

Lance has been, for the most part, a lifetime resident of Chicago. Currently she works as an internal auditor, though she’s also involved in several non-profits in the Chicago area.

Lance said the two have been friends since they attended the same schools in Chicago. Though Pope describes herself as something of a nomad, the two have remained friends and found a common interest while writing the book.

“When this started out, we thought we were going to do a prison food cook book,” Lance said. “It turned into something much more important.”

Lance said they began interviewing the convicted and found a much more interesting story in those seeking exoneration. Despite the change in direction, Pope said the book still had a prison food recipe or two left over from the book’s early concept.

The two are currently on tour for the new book. According to their website — prunoproject.com — an audiobook and documentary may also be on the way.