Bio
Before she became a full-time writer, Jo had a long career in radio and voiceovers in New York City and South Florida. Her air name was “The Rock and Roll Madame.” Click on these links for more about those days: Radio VOs Novelty record “It’s Your Birthday, So Be Happy!”
In the early 2000s, she moved to the Greensboro, NC, area to care for her estranged, declining mother. A bestselling memoir endorsed by Maya Angelou followed. Read about her books here.
In 2018, it was discovered by accident she had a pheochromocytoma, a rare non-cancerous tumor, in one of her adrenal glands. Odds: one in two million. It was churning out ten times too much adrenalin on and off for, perhaps, decades. Post-adrenalectomy she had a new lease on life and became a licensed auctioneer specializing in charity galas. Under the mentorship of Benjamin Farrell at Custom Benefit Auctions she traveled throughout America raising money for great causes. Then came the pandemic.
She married after being single for thirty years and “rewired” (her word for retired).
In 2025, she faced another rare medical drama. Ocular melanoma. Odds: one in six million. The tumor was too big to radiate. Her right eye was removed. Thankfully, the cancer had not spread. Odds for that happening now: 50/50.
She is an ardent advocate of having retinal images as part of standard eye care practice, or as an add-on service. She considers them to be like mammograms for the eyes but without radiation. And they can catch more than just cancer or eye-related conditions. They’re even close to using them to spot Alzheimer’s early.
Jo’s passions are travel, spying on wildlife with her trail camera, rowing on her ERG, and sumo. She lives quietly in North Carolina with her mathematician husband and cannot play Sudoku to save her life.