CLAY has left the building

Lia and I are pleased to announce that Clay has finally been released. I'm not sure what else to say. I'm so happy. I'm so tired. It feels a lot like what it feels like finishing a marathon. So thankful. So proud. So humbled. So exhausted. I want to celebrate. I want to go to bed. Big breath. Hi Ho Here We Go.(If you want a copy by Christmas, order soon!)

Clay the Paperback 

Clay the Ebook

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.

Go to http://www.nederickson.com/ for more!