In 1985, Joanne Shwed designed and published her husband's book, Collected Poetry of Thomas A. Ekkens—Early Works, and started her own company, BACKSPACE INK. Prior to that, she edited and typeset several early versions of Richard Bolles' best-selling book, What Color Is Your Parachute? These two experiences started an ongoing appreciation of and interest in book production. Joanne has edited, designed, and produced more than 70 books for publishing companies and independently published authors.

In collaboration with her husband, Thomas A. Ekkens, TAE GALLERY was created, which is an e-gallery of his original artwork, photography, and poetry. This collection features parsal photography in which a single photograph is divided (“parsed”) into multiple frames.

Joanne created, produced, and published Backpocket Crosswords: Handmade Puzzles, a collection of 24 handmade crossword puzzles (not computer generated) with common words and user-friendly clues. A percentage of the net profits is donated to the National Center for Family Literacy. She is currently working on the next edition!

By working directly with publishers, authors, printers, graphic artists, technical writers, and other print and Internet professionals, Joanne has acquired the expertise to manage a project from raw manuscript to the printed page.

With Joanne's knowledge of editing, page layout and typography, BACKSPACE INK offers an array of services to produce beautiful and readable books.