how bittersweet that time and space

the children of our past cannot erase

must seek a final answer to questions finally asked

Drema Hall Berkheimer

            photo at age seven

 

 

 

 

These things I know to be true. That the people and places and culture of where we come from sear into our very being and follow us all the days of our lives. That faith and family are twined around our limbs like grapevines. That these are the ties that bind.             Drema Hall Berkheimer

Born in a West Virginia coal camp called Penman, Drema Hall Berkheimer now lives on Word Street in Dallas, so maybe writing was her destiny all along. Her memoir, Running On Red Dog Road, is a testament to her life in small town Appalachia, the child of a miner killed in the mines, a Rosie the Riveter mother, and devout Pentecostal grandparents. Chapters from Running on Red Dog Road won First Place Nonfiction and First Honorable Mention Nonfiction in the 2010 WV Writers Competition and were published in WV South, an award-winning magazine where she has been a frequent contributor. She has memoir, fiction, flash fiction, poetry, and essays published in numerous online and print literary journals and other publications. Affiliations are WV Writers, Salon Quatre, and The Writers Garret in Dallas, where she lives with her husband and a neurotic cat who takes after her. Her husband is mostly normal.

My mother and me at my father’s funeral

Vonnie and me on the front porch