Baross Media, LLC

Jan Baross was born in Oakland, CA in 1943 and raised in Bakersfield, CA. Her father was an orthopedic surgeon. Her mother was a social worker and her brother was an ER doctor.

From an early age, Baross began sketching as she traveled with her mother around the world, which later translated into her illustrated travel books.

Her major was art at San Francisco State and she received a teaching credential. In the 60s, she became a photographer, documenting and publishing in the 1964-5 Free Speech Movement at Univ. of Cal. Berkeley and later the Hippy Movement in the Haight-Ashbury. She was editor of the classic photo journal, “The Hippies” published by the Idlewild Press.

In 1967 Baross married Dr. John A. Baross who became a renowned astrobiologist. They moved to Seattle where she joined the Seattle Film Board and made award winning documentaries, animated films and taught filmmaking for Upward Bound at UW.

By 1971 Baross and her husband had moved to Corvallis, Oregon. At Oregon State University, she taught filmmaking, got an MA in Communications, made documentaries for the University and was a film critic for The Corvallis Gazette Times. She’s produced television PR, worked on feature films and co-produced music videos. As a stringer, she worked for NBC and CBS affiliates.

After an amicable divorce in 1985, she moved to Portland, Oregon and continued her filmmaking, wrote optioned screenplays, and joined the board of the NW Film Co-op. She was also a film critic for The Business Journal, wrote features for The Jewish Review and articles for the Atención newspaper in Mexico.

Baross made over 30 films, some of which aired on A&E and OPB.

In the 90s, Baross joined Artists Rep. Theater literary board and began writing plays. As a published playwright, Ms. Baross had readings and productions Off Off Broadway in NY, Portland, LA and Mexico, winning awards and grants.

Her play “Mata Hari” inspired composer, Professor Vincent McDermott of Lewis and Clark College, to write an opera and Baross wrote the libretto. As winner of a 1995 national competition, the Mata Hari opera premiered at the Deep Ellum Opera Company in Dallas, Texas.

In 2006 her first novel, “Jose Builds a Woman” was published by Ooligan Press.

It won first place for fiction in the national The Kay Snow Awards. Her second novel was “Sylvia the One-Hundred-Year-Old Assassin,” a political satire. -“Bye-Bye Bakersfield” is an award winning, humorous, coming of age novel.

Baross began her own imprint, the MPolo Press. She now publishes her illustrated travel guidebooks. They are part of an on-going series.

Baross continues to write books and illustrate, designing posters for theatre companies in Portland, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where she spends her winters.