Clarissa A. (Clarissa Abia) Kneeland

Clarissa Abia Kneeland (1878–1950) was an American writer whose work included juvenile fiction. The Library of Congress credits her as the author of Smugglers' Island and the Devil Fires of San Moros, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1915.

Archival records at California State University, Fresno show that her papers span many years of writing and personal study. They describe manuscripts, short works, and correspondence with publishers, and they note her strong interest in weather, plants, and birds.

Those same records also place an important part of her life in the Topolobampo colony and later on Black Mountain, where she settled with her brother after leaving the colony in 1913. The collection suggests a life shaped not only by storytelling, but also by close observation of nature and by engagement with the social ideas of her time.