There are so many of you to thank. Please know how thankful I am for each one of you.
About the book, here are a few of the kind words some friends have shared on its behalf (plus some of Beth Williams amazing artwork).
Praise for Clay
Clay will seize
your heart and your imagination while becoming your friend. Clay will awaken you to the amazing
truth that there is something really special about you. Clay will convince you that becoming yourself is what living is all
about.
Fil Anderson, author of Running on Empty
Clay powerfully
captures a person's journey (particularly a teenager's pursuit) toward purpose
and identity. It is real and engaging. I recommend it.
Ty Saltzgiver, Senior Vice President of Young
Life
Ned uses the art of metaphor to mine the
depths of our common experience. In the personification of Clay we find the
fear, loneliness, hope, and longing of our fundamental pursuit of meaning and
identity in life – this little story will linger in your soul long after you
turn its last page because it is true, and true things stick.
Rick Lawrence, Executive Editor of GROUP Magazine, author of Sifted and Shrewd
I found the work to be wonderfully
creative. Several times, I pulled aside to read portions to my family and
comment to them how much I was enjoying Clay.
The story kept me guessing, wondering how it would end. When I turned the final
page and read the last line, I “sliced” a smile and closed the book, contented.
Marty Machowski, author of Long Story Short and the Gospel
Story Bible.
For
anyone feeling ordinary, here's a story that will redefine you. For anyone
searching for purpose, here's a story that will redirect you. For anyone longing
for more life, here's a story that will renew you. It's not the lyrical beauty
of Erickson's prose or even the "page-turner" storyline that gripped
my heart – it was the gradual realization that I am Clay. We are all clay.
Alan D. Wright, author of Free Yourself, Be
Yourself and Lover of My Soul
Clay is a book that you will happily add to
the list of classic reads that you enjoy returning to again and again. Ned has
a truly sweet and pure way of raising our curiosity, drawing us in to Clay's
beauty and it's winding path below the surface of things. It is the story of
our calling, design and purpose. This book most definitely will awaken the
sleeping child in many a reader. It did for me!
Michael R. Jordan,
Pastor of Worship and
Creative Arts
Greenwood
Community Church, Greenwood Village, CO
This book is simply a gift. Clay’s
story is unique and familiar, gut-wrenching and buoyant.
With its vibrant language, compelling narrative, and provocative questions of
meaning and purpose, we find upon turning the final page that we, like Clay,
have been transformed.
Dr. Joan F. Mitchell, Master Teacher and
co-author of Bridging English
Clay is reminiscent
of C.S. Lewis' Narnia – decorated with wonder, but founded on unshakeable
truth. As Clay embarks on his search for purpose, every reader will see
bits of themselves in his adventure. If you've ever questioned your
purpose in life, doubted your value to the world, or simply longed for
something more, then Clay's journey towards "being made" will delight
you, teach you, and inspire you.
Greg Lisson, Director of Christian Life at the
Wesleyan School, Norcross, GA
Is this book for you?
Well, have you ever wondered
if there was something more to life? Have you wondered what it was? Or wondered
how to get it? Clay has. Wonderings like that curl around his mind like question
marks and keep him up at night. That is, they do until the day a boy bumps up
the road.
This is a story about
what happens on the journey toward meaning and purpose. What happens to Clay
will surprise you, shock you. It may even reshape how you see things, including
yourself.
