About the Author

Jo was born and raised in the Southwest United States near central Arizona. She grew up in the desert playing with horny toads, cactus wrens, and red racer snakes, occasionally winning a battle of grapefruit wars with the neighborhood boys. With her father’s help she started her first vegetable garden at age five and received her first writing award in the second grade for a poem about two basset hounds—early beginnings of what was to come.

As eating was always a primary concern in her Italian family, she earned her first BS degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia in nutrition and dietetics, returning to Arizona to work as a registered dietitian. While raising her three children, she freelanced as a health editor for a local women’s magazine. Later she earned her second BS, this time in nursing from Arizona State University, followed by EMT certification where she volunteered with the sheriff’s Medical Rescue Posse. Health and sustainability continue to be an important aspect of her life often revealed in her writing.