Mary Jo Balistreri grew up in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where her playgrounds were woods, lakes, and meadows where strawberries grew wild, and pussy willows graced the springtime landscape. It was here that she began a life-long love of nature, music, and art. Her father was a tenor, her mother a watercolorist, and both grandparents, classical musicians. Family inspired and helped shape Mary Jo's interests and talents, and her book, Joy in the Morning, has its roots in that encouraging environment.

Mary Jo's poems speak of nature, family, music, art, and loss—aspects of life familiar to us all. A gifted musician as well as writer, this talented woman's first career was as a classical pianist. Now, with writing serving as a sort of spiritual path, Mary Jo has embraced a literary career with equal vigor; her hope is that her poems will go out into the world as a kind of meeting place, where readers might bring their own colors or nuances to her words, where meaning becomes layered, where writer and reader can become more because of the exchange.