This week YA author Trent Reedy took over our Twitter as a part of our weekly Thursday Twitter Takeover. Trent Reedy is the author of the YA book Enduring Freedom. (See YEM’s interview with Trent Reedy here.) See highlights from the takeover below.
I'm Trent Reedy here to discuss ENDURING FREEDOM a YA novel I've written with my Afghan friend Jawad Arash. We met years ago when I served with the Army in Afghanistan. Our perhaps unlikely and longtime friendship bore a book #yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/vTEqNqudGD
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
I was combat engineer-Army NG working with landmines & explosives in Afghanistan. Like ENDURING FREEDOM's PFC Joe Killian, I helped provide security for reconstruction mission, helping Afghans rebuild after Soviets & Taliban#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/2o8drTvYdl
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
20 years since 9/11 & start of Afghanistan war. ENDURING FREEDOM reminds us it wasn't just OUR war, but always an alliance with good Afghans, like my friend Jawad Arash, against evil Taliban & their allies that plagued us all.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/r6hMhqXbZI
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
ENDURING FREEDOM is as close to truth of the war as possible, not just because I've portrayed a version of my experiences, but because Jawad & I worked to get to the raw heart of that Afghan/American alliance and friendship.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/FjYjxLk9Wu
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
ENDURING FREEDOM was a hard book to write—I get emotional about the war & the Taliban put Jawad through hell—but it's a necessary book. For a generation of Americans & Afghans affected by this war, ENDURING FREEDOM's our story.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/JQGdafZwPu
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
ENDURING FREEDOM is one of very few—perhaps only—English language novels offering direct perspective of a man living in Afghanistan, growing up in the Taliban nightmare, a view of Afghan culture inspired by Jawad's real life.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/Ybbqvmnq7y
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
Jawad Arash taught me even more about Afghan culture as we wrote ENDURING FREEDOM. Readers will be fascinated. My stars, this photo makes me miss Afghan food. So good. Soldiers & Afghan-Americans know what I mean.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/KXS3GAsaX4
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
PFC Joe Killian-ENDURING FREEDOM's American protag begins his tour with terrible ideas of Afghanistan. His experience mirrors mine. I'm ashamed, but the war changed us so we love Afghanistan. The experience is important for readers to know. #yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook pic.twitter.com/nrQAc3DiPL
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
Jawad lived in fear, on other side of wall from a Talib. You can read about what that was like in ENDURING FREEDOM. Like PFC Joe Killian, I took our mission to help the Afghan people, especially the great kids, very seriously. pic.twitter.com/7sbUVZ6xBY
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
My 1st novel came from a promise I made to Zulaikha, an Afghan girl whose cleft lip we fixed, whose story I promised to tell. In ENDURING FREEDOM I share the soldier's POV directly. At times funny, exciting, or sad, but always realistic. #yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook pic.twitter.com/VKP2HLGPNh
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
20 years since 9/11. Afghanistan was a long war. It cut deep. It's over now, for Americans at least. A generation of our youth grew up missing deployed love ones. ENDURING FREEDOM is a reminder of what the war meant, what it was all about.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook pic.twitter.com/6Hwss6SnoC
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
Jawad & his friends feared Taliban catching them ringing bells on their bikes. They'd be arrested and beaten for the so-called crime of playing music. Those kinds of horrific but realistic details are all over ENDURING FREEDOM#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/GmObQtfGCx
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
An Afghan man like this risked his life to stop our Army convoy from driving into an old Soviet minefield. Afghans saved our lives many times, an element Jawad and I thought essential to include in ENDURING FREEDOM#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/5QtEljBTDv
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
My time in Afghanistan wasn't all bad, like some books or movies would suggest. Sometimes it was fun. I had the chance to climb on this 2,000 year old fortress said to have been built by Alexander the Great. The arch held!#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/vCodvrCh7o
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
ENDURING FREEDOM protags Baheer & PFC Killian meet at our Afghanistan base a lot. My unit oversaw its construction. Living there was rough at 1st. Years ago I'd be in big trouble posting this pic. Good guide for writing EF tho.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/SpvDUUpwNg
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
Afghan HS girls in their tent classroom—Afghanistan's best hope. Education's one of the most important elements in ENDURING FREEDOM. Jawad Arash is a teacher in Afghanistan, determined to help foster a new & better future.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/y92MOmyPg4
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
Delivering supplies to an Afghan girls' school. ENDURING FREEDOM stresses the life or death importance of education. Nazis, Soviets, Taliban-1st they come for the books. Control thought-control people. Education is freedom.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/1Q0PlHOaQe
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
Afghan sunrise seen from behind the wire on our Army base. ENDURING FREEDOM highlights this strange mix of the ugly and the beautiful. Hope amid the fear. Friendship across the cultural divide in the middle of a war.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/ti12YVJdWy
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
1 hard part of my Army Afghanistan tour was living in rented Afghan house while our base was built outside Farah City. Hot crowded dirty & I was so afraid. But I met Jawad there & he helped. All fictionalized in ENDURING FREEDOM#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/ahaJ4HArk0
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
This Afghan girl seems to ask, "Don't I deserve a better shot at my dreams?" YES! That's what ENDURING FREEDOM, our book & the Operation, are all about. Get a better sense of what this long war meant to soldiers & Afghans alike#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/JRF3KWLBjA
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
My fellow combat engineers & I rigged old Soviet landmines for destruction so enemy couldn't use em to hurt soldiers or Afghans. Great mission. ENDURING FREEDOM shows those missions down in detail, down to every little weapons function.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook pic.twitter.com/jcbtxPXJHH
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
Combat engineers take a lot of pride in our explosives work. Had to share 1 more pic, old mortars we rigged for demo. Don't try this at home. Possession of C4 is illegal (I hope) & if you don't know what you're doing, it'll be a bad day.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook pic.twitter.com/xASAYC3zsC
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
Hard co-writing ENDURING FREEDOM from opposites sides of Earth. Jawad & I made it work, 1 writing while the other slept through his night. The war that started 20 yrs ago after 9/11 was hard too. Jawad & I did our best to make something good come out of it.#yaauthortakeover pic.twitter.com/JuxEgcJF0y
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
It's an honor to have served in war in Afghanistan, to be friends with my co-writer Jawad Arash, and to have the chance to tell you about our new YA novel ENDURING FREEDOM—An important book about an important mission.#yaauthortakeover #enduringfreedombook @algonquinyr pic.twitter.com/Myu9gCbQY0
— WATCH 📺 LISTEN 🎧 READ 📚 (@YoungEntmag) May 6, 2021
