Meet Jeff.
Jeff Kluever is a writer, speaker, and educator from Des Moines, Iowa. Waking the Shadows is his first novel.
When I was in fifth grade, I wrote my first novel, titled Sherman’s Will. The story featured Detective Dominike, who, in addition to being a detective, enjoyed many of the same activities as your average 10-year-old boy – watching television, playing video games, and sleeping. Over 19 spine-tingling pages, my intrepid detective determined that the General William Tecumseh Sherman artifacts stolen from the “National Historical Society of Atlanta” were taken by a spiteful, long-lost relative of Confederate General Johnston. It’s a convoluted story, and I’m not entirely sure the plot makes sense, but it was my first foray into writing.
It took me over 25 years to write my next novel, Waking the Shadows, and I believe it a great improvement on my first work. I’ve studied the Civil War nearly my entire life, not only to increase my own knowledge, but to find ways to take that knowledge and make it relevant, meaningful, and emotionally captivating for other audiences. I studied history at Grinnell College and earned a master’s degree from Carroll University, where I examined the impact of teaching history through narrative for my thesis. As the former Education Supervisor at Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier, I delivered hundreds of presentations, tours, and programs focused on slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction and poured myself into finding ways to make history real and consequential to my audience.
That quest continues in Waking the Shadows, where battlefield tactics and political maneuvers (both of which are certainly worthy of study) take a back seat the story of the emotional damage and trauma caused by the war, even years after the Confederacy’s surrender. It is that same purpose that drives me when delivering tours of Woodland Cemetery and Fort Des Moines, and I sincerely hope that anyone who reads my book or participates in one of my tours discovers their own heartfelt connection to the past.