Sally Walker Brinkmann was born in Washington, D.C. She attended George Washington University and graduated from Shepherd College with a BA in English. She worked eight years as writer and editor of The Sandpiper, an employee newspaper of U.S. Silica Corporation, a mining operation in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. She also taught English in West Virginia for seventeen years.
Several of her shorter stories have been published in local anthologies. Four of her plays have been produced by the Morgan Arts Council Theater Project. She has won awards in the West Virginia Writers’ annual competitions for both drama and fiction.
A collection of her shorter work, Wicked Women and Other Stories, all set in this area of modern day West Virginia, is due to be published soon by Borgo Press. Her second novel, Between River and Mountain, a Civil War story set in Morgan County, is due to be published by Borgo Press in 2014.
Much of her writing is about survival, as it’s always been an issue in the hill country. The unique local dialect and rhythm of speech are part of her writing.