Events

David Bruns and JR Olson are both graduates of the US Naval Academy and former US Navy officers. David served six years as an officer on a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine and JR spent a 21-year career as a naval intelligence officer. His time on active duty included service as a CIA-trained case officer and as a naval attaché to Finland.

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JR, a career naval intelligence officer and national security professional, teaches at Carleton College and the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs on the topics of national security, the intelligence community, and counterterrorism. He is a sought-after speaker for the Global Minnesota Great Decisions lecture series. JR was featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Rash Report in the article, An intelligence analyst’s smart take on the Signal chat.

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As a writing team, David and JR are available for speaking engagements with veterans' organizations, book clubs, writing conferences, and literary event keynote addresses. In over ten years of co-writing, they have made—and recovered from—every possible writing and publishing mistake and celebrated every success. We accept the challenge to tailor a gripping presentation for any audience of writers or readers. The speaker experience includes:

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• The joys and pitfalls of co-writing

• Extensive experience with different publishing paths: David and JR have crowdfunded, self-published, been under contract with traditional publisher St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan, and released novels with a small press.

• Research methods: Writing national security thrillers in a time of global unrest.

• Managing a creative business partnership for the long-term

• A bottomless supply of sea stories about their time at the US Naval Academy and in their combined three decades of active-duty service in the US  Navy.