The Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana is a writer, pastor, speaker, and coach living in the Virginia suburbs of DC. She is a mother of three, an inveterate muffin-maker, a haphazard knitter, and an occasional ultramarathoner.

Like many authors, MaryAnn writes the books that she herself longs to read:

—She penned Hope: A User’s Manual (2022) as a way of writing herself back into a sense of hope after a grueling few years of life and world events.

—As a recovering perfectionist who likes her backup plans to have backup plans, she wrote God, Improv, and the Art of Living (2018), about embracing improvisation as a spiritual and life practice. 

—And as a workaholic seeking to find balance in a 24/7 world, she wrote Sabbath in the Suburbs (2012), which turned out to be a Chalice Press bestseller for two years running and a “must read” by Ministry Matters. (Apparently other people are dealing with that stuff too?)

Her writing has appeared in TIME.com, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches, Journal for Preachers, and the Christian Century, and in a monthly column for Presbyterians Today for three years. She was featured on PBS’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly for her work on Sabbath and was recognized by the Presbyterian Writers Guild with the 2015-2016 David Steele Distinguished Writer Award.

A pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Herndon, VA, she is a sought-after speaker. MaryAnn is a graduate of Rice University in Houston, Texas and received her M.Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia.

In 2017 she began leadership coaching and running coaching. Running coaching is on hiatus, but professional coaching continues. Learn more here.