Poulsbo’s Away With Words offers gifts for body and mind | Entertainment

Neighborhood Reads

On April 25, 33 stores in the region will celebrate Seattle Independent Bookstore Day with activities including in-store readings, scavenger hunts and story times for children, giveaways, and treats. For the heartiest book-lovers in the region, the 25 is also the launch of the 10-day Passport Challenge, which requires participants to get special cards stamped at all 33 stores by May 4 in order to win a one-time 25% discount at every participating SIBD store. 

The Passport Challenge has grown dramatically since SIBD’s founding in 2015. It now includes bookstores that sprawl across the area, from East West Books & Gifts in Edmonds to Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond to Page 2 Books in Burien.

One of the seemingly farthest-flung bookstores in the challenge, Poulsbo’s Away With Words, is actually incredibly easy to reach from downtown Seattle. Just take the ferry to Bainbridge, then hop on the 390 bus, which takes you straight to Poulsbo — all told, a trip of less than an hour and a half. In heavy traffic, it’s sometimes harder to get to Ballard from South Seattle on public transportation.

Away With Words is celebrating SIBD with a new ferry-themed tote bag created by local designer Jen Colburn, a giveaway for a free year of audiobooks by local indie bookstore-friendly audiobook service Libro.fm, and appearances by local authors Mary Lou Sanelli, Julie Farley, Eve Kasey, and Sarah Eriksen. The husband-and-wife team that co-owns the store, Kevin and Bittina Sheen, are also hoping that new visitors brought in by SIBD will appreciate Away With Words’ unique blend of bookstore and bath and body shop.

The mixture of two seemingly disparate stores seems as natural a pairing as … well, books and water. But on walking into the shop, it all comes into focus. From the bathtub full of bath bombs and the displays of soaps and facial masks at the front of the store, on back to the genre-dominated bookshelves, Away With Words functions as a spa for body and mind — a place to lose yourself in the pleasure of a luxurious skin care regimen and a perfectly escapist novel. 

And the owners note with pride that many of the pleasures you can buy at Away With Words are hyperlocal: “We make all of our lotions, scrubs and candles in-house,” Bittina explains. 

Away With Words was founded in 2018 by Elise and Geneva Lee. The Lees were looking to sell the business after Geneva’s paranormal romance novel series hit the bestseller charts. The Sheens were friends with the Lees, and Bittina “offered to work there for a day because [Elise] had a couple people call in sick” during the busy holiday rush of 2022. 

“So I had a crash course of like 10 minutes — ‘Here’s how you run the cash register, here’s how the store works,’ and then I was just by myself for the whole day,” Bittina recalls. It was a frantic, busy shift, but she went home invigorated, and that night, she and Kevin started seriously discussing buying the business.

The Sheens grew up in Poulsbo, and since they married in 2022, they have devoted themselves to the Poulsbo community and the arts in Poulsbo in particular. While they were planning their wedding, they also founded the Poulsbo Film Festival, and Bittina served for years on the board of the Historic Downtown Poulsbo Association. 

When they started considering buying Away With Words, Kevin recalls, “I was thinking, ‘What could be more Poulsbo than owning a small business on Front Street?’ It would give us an opportunity to be even more involved.” They got the keys to the shop in January of 2023 and now oversee a staff of four booksellers.

The shop reflects their varied interests. Kevin’s parents Kay and Wray are ceramists who, for years, had a booth in Pike Place Market, and now the shop carries some of their ceramics, along with Poulsbo-themed ceramic magnets that Kevin makes. As the founders of the Poulsbo Film Festival, it makes sense that Away With Words has a books-on-film section that’s better than any other store of its size. And Kevin’s stint as a candlemaker in a Georgetown factory gave him the experience he needed to create the handmade scented candles, soaps and other bath products available in the shop. 

In the three years that they’ve owned Away With Words, Kevin explains that the Sheens have expanded the shop’s children’s book section to include “diverse books and good representation of different stories,” and they’ve similarly built out the horror section and added games. The shop is quickly becoming a showcase for Poulsbo’s surprisingly large and growing population of local authors. “Last year, 10 out of 10 of our store bestsellers were local authors,” Bittina says with pride.

Now they’re working on expanding the author events and book club schedule, including plans for what might be their biggest event yet: A book launch party on May 19 for Gig Harbor author Rachel Linden’s latest Poulsbo-set novel, “A Sprinkle of Sweet Serendipity,” in partnership with local businesses mentioned in the novel.

In the end, the Sheens hope that everybody can find something to love at Away With Words, “whether it’s a lotion or a candle or a ceramic dish or a magnet,” Kevin says. “We’re the store where you can come in and find a gift for literally anyone you know.”

What are Away With Words customers reading?

Gig Harbor author Matt Dinniman’s “Dungeon Crawler Carl” series “is a hard book to keep in stock right now,” Kevin says. “One of our staffers, Annika Hald, loves that series” and has championed it from the beginning. Kevin also loves a recent stand-alone Dinniman novel, “Operation Bounce House.” “I read a lot of horror and mystery and thrillers, so there aren’t usually a lot of jokes in there,” Kevin says, “but Dinniman does a great job setting a scene and then landing a funny joke.”

Hansville, Kitsap County, mystery author D.D. Black is one of the store’s bestselling authors — particularly his locally set “Thomas Austin” thriller series. “We’ve sold over 600 copies of his books,” Bittina says, “and it’s almost viral: His next book comes out, and people immediately rush in looking for it.” 

Bittina notes that since Away With Words is devoted to local authors, those same local authors are loving the store right back. She was delighted to see that local romance author Eve Kasey’s newest book, “Love Overboard,” “just came out a couple weeks ago, and in her acknowledgments, she mentioned us because we’ve had her for a bunch of events. It was really sweet.”

That gratitude for Away With Words was a big moment, Bittina says. It reminded her that “you don’t really realize the impact that you’re having on these people that you’re inviting to collaborate on things with.” Away With Words shows that a good bookstore is built on those relationships, a growing circle of gratitude between author, reader and bookseller.