POYER: We heard from acclaimed novelist David Poyer, a Bradford native with nearly 50 books to his name.

The 1967 graduate of Bradford Area High School, now a resident of Franktown, Virginia, will give the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Irish Writers Union in Dublin this March on the topic of AI for writers.

He’s been called “the most popular living author of American sea fiction.” He has written best-selling thrillers, stories set in a fictional county in the Pennsylvania hills, underwater adventure, historical fiction, sailing novels, several non-fiction books as well as an oral history.

David was born in DuBois in 1949. He grew up in Brockway, Emlenton, and Bradford. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1971, and later received a master’s degree from George Washington University.

His active and reserve naval service included sea duty in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, and Pacific, and shore duty at the Pentagon, Fleet Training Center, Surface Warfare Development Group, Joint Forces Command, and in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He retired from the Joint Forces Command as a captain, with the Defense Superior Service Medal as his highest award.

Poyer’s work has been translated into Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Hungarian, recorded for audiobooks, published as ebooks, selected by the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club, etc. Rights to several properties have been sold or optioned for films.

Poyer has taught or lectured at Annapolis, Flagler College, University of Pittsburgh, Old Dominion University, the Armed Forces Staff College, the University of North Florida, Christopher Newport University, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, and other institutions.

He’s currently a fellow at the Virginia Center of Creative Arts and teaches at the Ossabaw Island Writers’ Retreat.