Mary Ann Clark PhD

Mary Ann Clark is an independent scholar who teaches at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona. She has published widely about the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria and its sister traditions. Her most recent academic work includes Then We’ll Sing a New Song: African Influences on America’s Religious Landscape, a fascinating examination of how African religions have shaped beliefs and practices in the contemporary United States and “Spirit is Universal: Development of Black Spiritualist Churches” in Esotericism in African American Religious Experience which explores a new trans-disciplinary enterprise focused on the esoteric lore and practices in African and the African Diaspora.

Mary Ann's newest passion is speculative fiction including her debut novella "The Baron’s Box: A Story from the Bardo" and "The Third Way."

In "The Baron's Box" Mary Ann asks us to follow the newly dead Sara on her journey through the afterlife. Will she remember enough of her former life to understand why she and her companion, Sam, have been thrown together? Will they be able to release the emotions of their lives and tragic deaths? Can they meet the challenges of the Bardo and fulfill their promises to each other?

In a change of pace, "Third Way" follow a group of women almost 200 years in the future. For years the motorcycle gang known as the Demon Spawn has been taking a portion of Verdant Valley’s harvest. But this year they want more, much more. Can the small group of women calling themselves the Sisterhood of the Moon save their town and the entire Babapupa Reserve from both the slow death of starvation and the massacre of resistance?

Growing up on the high plains of Colorado, Mary Ann received her undergraduate degree from Creighton University. She earned an MBA from the University of Houston, and started her own technical writing company. There she managed the writing of computer documentation and other types of procedure manuals.

After almost 20 years as a technical writer, she went back to school and earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Rice University, in Houston, Texas.

She is also an enthusiastic cohouser living in Manzanita Village, an intentional community in the Arizona highlands, and an active member of her local Unitarian Universalist congregation. Mary Ann has served on the Board Trustees and served as president of the congregation from 2014 to 2016.