Author.
Educator.
Storyteller.
I am a former fifth grade ELA teacher, a certified curriculum developer, a Catholic faith creator, and the author of the Anna Lucia Series. Everything I create is built on one conviction: the women of Scripture were extraordinary, and the world deserves to know their real stories.
I grew up in a big, loud, loving Italian-American Catholic family in New Jersey. I have a little sister who has been front row for everything I have ever done. I have cousins who push back on every single thing I say and end up riveted anyway. I have a faith that has been tested, carried, and deepened through every season of my life.
All of that is Anna Lucia. She did not come from a writing prompt. She came from my family, my faith, and my great-grandmother Lucia whose name she carries.
I am a writer because I write. I am an educator because I teach. And I am a Catholic because I have encountered the same God that Anna Lucia keeps sneaking off to hear. I have seen what He does to a person. And I cannot stop talking about it.
“I am a writer because I write.”
Joanna Bianco
The education
behind the work.
Every piece of curriculum, every story, and every speaking engagement is informed by years of formal training, real classroom experience, and a genuine love for how children learn and grow.
Certifications in Elementary Education, Special Education, and Middle School ELA. A deep and formal understanding of how children at every level process language, build literacy, and internalize story.
Certified curriculum developer with formal training in intentional instructional design. Every Anna Lucia unit study is sequenced, standards aligned, and built for real homeschool families with multiple children at multiple levels.
Orton-Gillingham trained in multi-sensory literacy instruction for diverse learners. The Anna Lucia curriculum is informed by these principles so children with different learning profiles can fully access and enjoy the material.
Classroom educator from 2019 to 2026, working with children in the exact age range the Anna Lucia Series is written for. Every lesson, every activity, and every writing prompt is built from seven years of real teaching experience with real children.
Anna Lucia and the Woman They Got Wrong is officially registered with the United States Copyright Office (Case #1-15122860051). Anna Lucia is an original character created, owned, and protected by Joanna Bianco LLC.
Trained in debate and paralegal studies with a strong foundation in research, rhetoric, and making a clear and compelling case. These skills live in every talk, every piece of writing, and in Anna Lucia herself who cannot stand an inaccurate story.
She came from
family.
Anna Lucia did not start as a character concept. She started as a conversation. A question I kept asking myself while teaching ELA and writing devotional content for women: what if a child had witnessed all of this?
She has my green eyes and curly brown hair. Her little sister Livia is front row for everything she does, the way my own sister has always been front row for me. Her cousins push back and get pulled in, the way my family always has. Her father is a Roman Senator who does not fully understand her, the way fathers sometimes do not fully understand daughters who are meant for something bigger than anyone expected.
Her name carries my great-grandmother Lucia. Every time someone reads that name they are unknowingly honoring a woman in my family who came before me. That is what anointed creative work does. It carries people who cannot carry themselves anymore.
Anna Lucia is copyrighted, protected, and ready to tell seventeen stories. She has been waiting her whole life for this moment.
Just like her creator.
daughter who
knew the truth.
© 2026 Joanna Bianco LLC · US Copyright Case #1-15122860051
Hot Meets Holy.
Before Anna Lucia there was Hot Meets Holy. A Catholic faith and femininity brand built on one belief: you do not have to choose between being deeply faithful and fully yourself.
Hot Meets Holy has been reaching Catholic and broadly Christian women since 2025 with content, coaching, and community centered on identity, heartbreak healing, biblical femininity, and the audacious idea that God did not ask you to make yourself smaller to follow Him.
The women of Scripture are at the center of Hot Meets Holy’s identity and teaching. Anna Lucia is what happens when that same message is given to a ten-year-old Roman girl and she runs with it. The brands share a heartbeat. They just speak to different audiences.
Visit Hot Meets Holy“The women of Scripture were extraordinary. Anna Lucia exists because someone needs to say so to children who are old enough to believe it and young enough to let it change them.”
Joanna Bianco
Ready to bring
Anna Lucia to your family?
Explore the book series, join the curriculum waitlist, book Joanna for your next event, or just get on the list so you never miss a new Anna Lucia story.