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Travis Klempan

@travisklempan.bsky.social

230 followers 82 following 2.6K posts

Author of HAVE SNAKES, NEED BIRDS (Koehler Books) and HILLS HIDE MOUNTAINS (MilSpeak Books)

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · Jan 21

Here’s a list of my writing and associated work…enjoy!

My second novel HILLS HIDE MOUNTAINS

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 13m

Now the dad would be named head of the FAA

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 1h

They should go put them where all the ET Atari game cartridges ended up

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 1h

As a kid I always thought they just replayed the last few minutes of the movie from before the break after the break, like that’s how movies were filmed.

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 1h

There’s “Wait for it to come out on video” and then there’s “Wait for it to air on Sunday Night Movie of the Week and tape it, commercials and all” on a blank VHS with two other movies from vastly different genres.

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 1h

Did you guys hire Chris Cillizza to write for you?

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 1h

“Facism”

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 2h

Attention athletes: boycott the LA Olympics

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6h

Trump: "Somebody said, 'would we think about taking the World Cup away from Boston if they don't straighten it out?' The answer is yes. We have the right to do that with FIFA. So if we think that LA is gonna be bad, or that applies a little bit to the Olympics too."

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 5h

Funny (not funny) how they wrote this whole article without once mentioning the Anti-Deficiency Act.

Stars and Stripes @starsandstripes.bsky.social · 1d

Despite the government shutdown, paychecks will be going out to the U.S. military...and to the Coast Guard.

The administration has begun tapping funds from Trump’s tax breaks and budget law to pay for priorities during the shutdown, ensuring that the Coast Guard doesn’t go without paychecks.

Trump’s ‘big bill’ will help ensure Coast Guard salaries get paid

Despite the government shutdown, paychecks will be going out to the U.S. military ... and to the Coast Guard.

www.stripes.com

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 5h

Uh oh who is his Sally Hemings?

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 5h

stan marsh says stop being a baby in front of a group of south park characters

ALT: stan marsh says stop being a baby in front of a group of south park characters

media.tenor.com

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 6h

All three in support of a subsurface campaign

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 6h

These tech bros will poop in a river and claim they’ve disrupted boats.

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 6h

One of the leaders of the child gang

a young man in a hat and suspenders is holding a cane .

ALT: a young man in a hat and suspenders is holding a cane .

media.tenor.com

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 7h

In case you’re curious:
USS Chattanooga would have been a better name for a Ticonderoga-class cruiser rename. Save Robert Smalls for a DDG.

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 9h

Not trying to give anyone any ideas, but I’m surprised that amidst all the other unrenaming folderol with Army bases Whiskey Pete hasn’t ordered the unrenaming of the USS Robert Smalls (which, to be clear, was not the best option to rename the ex-Chancellorsville).

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 7h

Janus Program is tech bro levels of weird naming

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 7h

17/18 (long plane ride to homecoming): nope, in medias res in the middle of an Oklahoma field after surviving a Christian music festival and the stomach flu
20 (doesn’t want to talk about the war): he does, just not how Sera and Mo and Anita expect him to

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

13 (shoot the dog?): no, save the jackal (shoot the snake to save the hoopoe)
14 (malaria dream): no, but witness to eldritch horrors
15 (high-brow lit): yeah you got me on this one, dead to rights (Harper Lee, Austen, Bradbury, Dante…but also Jimmy Buffett)
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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

8 (jargon/cursing): got around this with a sanctimonious platoon leader and a minimum of jargon
10 (email): yes, but an uninterrupted exchange between two important characters
11 (bemoan chain of command): yes, kind of, but Colonel Kujo does speak in malapropspoonerisms
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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

Here you go:
1 (shoot/don’t shoot): I had a scene depicting this in an earlier draft of HSNB that got excised during editing, for the better
4 (mortar death): yes but not an important character (we hardly knew you, Specialist Montero)
5 (funeral): yes
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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

Assigning half-unit values for “eh kind of,” I give HSNB a 4/20 (not intended to be an ironic drug reference).

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

Your 20/20 blurb is, of course, hilarious in its full bore depiction. I needed to go get some vet-brand coffee after reading that.

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

The strongest evidence against white supremacy continues to be white supremacists.

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

-a dining table argument with echoing repercussions, or a colonel who speaks in malapropspoonerisms.

Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

I did not consciously set out to avoid these or any cliches, and some are perhaps inevitable. As Peter points out, the idea is to do them differently, anew, with fresh insight.

Pretty sure no other GWOT novel has a coyote guardian angel, the painted man, ghost bodyguards, a ghost story competition-

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

Assigning half-unit values for “eh kind of,” I give HSNB a 4/20 (not intended to be an ironic drug reference).

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Travis Klempan @travisklempan.bsky.social · 8h

Happy to say I’ve done a few of these differently, many not at all, and invented a few new ones in HAVE SNAKES, NEED BIRDS.

TimeNowEncore @petermolin.bsky.social · 8h

"...a smart young writer-buck might pack all 20 of the motifs I’ve named into one super-story that then becomes more popular than American Sniper..." From June 11, 2015. acolytesofwar.com/2015/06/11/b...

Been There, Done That: Contemporary War Writing Stock Scenes

For all those contemplating or currently writing memoir, fiction, or poetry about war in Iraq or Afghanistan and its aftermath, I’ve listed twenty events or ways of describing events that I’ve enco…

acolytesofwar.com

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