David Cheramie was born in New Orleans but grew up in the fishing and oil-services town of Golden Meadow on the banks of Bayou LaFourche. He was graduated cum laude from Loyola University of New Orleans in 1981 with a B.A in History, and from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, today the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, in 1992 with an M.A. in French and again in 1999 with a Ph.D. in Francophone Studies. Upon returning to Louisiana after having lived in France for seven years, he decided to become active in the renaissance of the French language and culture. He is a founding member of Les Amis de l'Immersion and Action Cadienne, two organizations dedicated to the preservation of the French language through Immersion education. From 1990 to 1996 he edited and published Feux follets, a French-language literary revue. In 1992, he published his translation of Gabriel Desbiens' series of articles about French Creole immigration to Louisiana after the Haitian Slave Revolt under the title The Road to Louisiana. In 1997, he published his first collection of poetry, Lait à mère. The year 1998 saw the publication of a collection of short stories, Feux follets: Une anthologie de la nouvelle louisianaise, written in French by Louisianians which he edited and contributed to. After having worked for over a year as Director of Programming and Communication for the Congrès Mondial Acadien-Louisiane 1999, he was named Executive Director of the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana in January 1998. In 2004, he was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In 2007, the Conseil Supérieur de la Langue Française, a branch of the Québec Provincial Government, named him to the Ordre des Francophones d’Amérique. His second book of poetry, Julie Choufleur ou les preuves d’amour, was published in 2008 by Les Éditions Tintamarre at Centenary College in Shreveport, LA.