JoAnn Balingit

JoAnn Balingit is an American poet and nonfiction writer. She is the author of the book Words For House Story, a poetry collection featured in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, a Washington D.C. based Literary Journal. Her two award-winning Chapbooks, Forage and Your Heart and How It Works, explore female identity and Philippine ancestry. More of her published work can be found in anthologies No Place Like Here: Southern Delaware Poetry and Prose and On the Mason Dixon Line: Contemporary Delaware Writers. Balingit is a reporter for Delaware Online, a subsection of The News Journal, and a professor at the University of Delaware where she teaches poetry.

Balingit was the poet laureate of Delaware. She was appointed to the position in 2008 and held the position until 2015.

Balingit was born in Columbus, Ohio to a German American mother and a Filipino immigrant father. She later moved to Lakeland, Florida, where she was raised. She earned her B.A. in English Literature from University of California, Irvine, went on to complete a M.L.S. from Indiana University and earned her Doctorate in Education from the University of Delaware.

She currently resides in northern Delaware with her two daughters, Savannah and Bahiya.