David J. Keffer was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He pursued a technical education and, since 1998, has taught as an engineering professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has published about 100 technical papers in archival journals. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant to learn and to teach about sustainability in Seoul, Korea. Keffer also studies world literature and creative writing. Over the past several decades, he has been active writing novels, poetry and stories. Several novels and illustrated stories are available from the Poison Pie Publishing House. Beginning in 2012, David Keffer began teaching a course on the subject of non-idiomatic improvisational music, of which he is a dedicated listener and a topic which has aided him in an on-going investigation of a literature of non-idiomatic improvisation.