Joe Balaz & Mary Ellen Derwis

Joe Balaz writes in American English and in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (HIP). He is a writer, visual artist, and freelance improv musician, who has created works in poetry, visual poetry, and music poetry. Balaz lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and he is the editor of 13 Miles from Cleveland, an online literary, art, and music magazine.

Mary Ellen Derwis is a photo artist, painter, and video film artist who was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Some of her photo art is archived at the Avant-garde Writing Collection at Ohio State University, and her artwork and photos have appeared in several literary and art magazines online. She is coauthor, with Joe Balaz, of Expanding the Radius, a book of visual poetry and photo art published by Otoliths Press of Australia. Derwis presently lives in Virginia.