Be the Change: One Random Act of Kindness at a Time.
My new book is now available. On Amazon: Be the Change: One Random Act of Kindness at a Time . On Barnes and Noble.
Each of us can make a difference in the world, starting with ourselves, our family, our neighborhood, and our community. That difference, that work of being an agent of change starts with one person – you. One person and small groups are the true change agents in the world. One person can make a difference, significant and often monumental.
This book is a collection of thoughts, expressions of optimistic intentions, to make a difference, to be a force to be reckoned with. I believe in the empowerment of one person to bring about fundamental change.
You and I can change attitudes and can help people reform their focus, their life force, to bring about basic, lasting change.
This work starts with one person who has a strong sense of idealism and purpose, who wants to make their life, and eventually, the world a better place.
That aspiration can be daunting, but it begins with one step, one small change. A person who is committed to an ideal and has a plan of action, is a force to be reckoned with, a game changer, and one of the most powerful forces in the world – a committed agent of change.
Finding My Muse on Main Street
Growing up on the Pacific Northwest coast, small town boy Jake Morgan wants to find himself and his purpose in life. With the help of his many friends along Main Street, he lights his artistic creativity on fire. Taking the lead, he forges a coalition of artists, movers and shakers to build a community and open an art gallery on Main Street. Along the way, lives are transformed, including his own, on his way to manhood. In this young adult novel, Jake discovers his own artistic gifts and dreams, and connects with others along Main Street, who are seeking their own artistic dreams and creativity. Together, they build a renewed community, healing old wounds and reinvigorating their lives.
Available at Amazon
Homegrown Tomatoes: Essays and Musings From My Garden, available in e-book format from Amazon
Click on images below to be taken to purchasing pages.
Mentoring Boys to Men: Climbing Their Own Walls (Neal Lemery)
As a judge in rural Tillamook County, Oregon, Neal C. Lemery watched for years as frustrated, hopeless young men cycled through his courtroom. Many of them ended up in Tillamook’s local juvenile prison. Lemery came to understand the reasons behind their failure: poverty, illiteracy, abuse, and absentee fathers.
Despite disapproval in his community, Lemery began visiting the prison and speaking with these young men. Many were hesitant at first, but slowly their stories began to emerge. Lemery was there to provide personal and legal advice—and often simply to listen. Most of them had never known a positive male role model. Eventually Lemery’s patience and tenderness paid off. As walls came down, new portraits emerged of boys who wanted to be decent, caring, contributing men, but didn’t know how.
Mentoring Boys to Men is the story of how the simple gifts of time and a compassionate ear made the difference in the lives of these juvenile offenders. With his story, Lemery hopes to inspire you to reach out to the rejected and vulnerable. After reading this book, your soul will rejoice at the idea of making a unique kind of personal, profound, and positive connection in your newfound young friends’ lives.
Read the Street Roots article about my mentoring work at the Oregon Youth Authority.
Happy House 2014 Calendar (Neal Lemery)
Neal’s keen eye for the beauty in nature lends itself to his second calendar collection, this time for 2014.
Happy House 2013 Calendar (Neal Lemery)
Neal’s debut photographic calendar for 2013 inspires us to breath in the beauty all around us.
Sally Jo Survives Sixth Grade: A Journal (Karen Keltz)
Sally Jo Benedict leaves her counselor’s office the second day of sixth grade armed with an empty journal as her only survival mechanism to start a school year that will prove to be full of remarkable surprises, stimulating mysteries, and irreversible change. She records her life as she confronts the new kid, Melvin Porter, who tries to kiss her at every opportunity, not seeming to understand the word “No!”
She grapples with the heartache of her best friend Eddo’s mounting jealously and feelings of betrayal, and the burgeoning romance between her sixth grade teacher, Mr. Wilson, and her single mother. Sally Jo sorts out her frustrations and conclusions about romance, betrayal and loss in her journal entries, and ends each one with a question for her readers to consider and answer.
A compelling story of a sixth grade girl, navigating life and romance in the 1980s…
Neal Lemery 