Disabled author Shaw Sander’s juicy retro novel Baked In Seattle is now available to wholesale book buyers through Ingram distributors. On Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Overdrive/Smashwords since 2016, Baked In Seattle already enjoys regional eBook cachet in the King County, Seattle, Tacoma and Timberland Library Systems.
Before flannel was ironic, back when Starbucks and Amazon were start-ups, Seattle welcomed a half-Jewish half-lesbian FedEx driver from Indiana’s Sunshine Tribe, via Mike Royko, City Lights Bookstore and Sir Mix-A-Lot.
Bonding with a Scandinavian mother of twins, an “Oakland black” restaurant manager, a Mexican recovering addict and a Spokane old-money pixie in glittery Santa-drag, the cultural rebels shock Seattle’s two-stepping gay bar, wrestle a hate crime’s international media frenzy and invade the Ban Roll-On Building’s secret dome while navigating surprise love, 12-step meetings, late-life parenthood and terminal illness.
Ms. Sander wrote despite vestibular and brain dysfunction’s persistent non-spinning vertigo, managing intense nausea, wavy perception, tracking issues and visual disturbance. Inspired by Laura Hillenbrand, chronically ill author of Seabiscuit and Unbroken, ferocious perseverance helped Shaw Sander press on to finish Baked In Seattle.
“My illness is excruciating and difficult to cope with. It takes over your entire life and causes more suffering than I can describe,” said Ms. Hillenbrand, whose best-sellers provided Ms. Sander real motivation. Raising children while submitting work to agents and publishers meant Ms. Sander didn’t quit her day job. Stricken by illness in her fifties, her blue-collar experience became material.
Though imbalance’s visual and cognitive difficulty now make reading whole books impossible, Shaw Sander stays sharp with essays, articles and short online content. Coming soon are a terrifying lover-turned-stalker sequel to Baked In Seattle and a hand-illustrated hipster teen advice book. Originally from “the greater Chicagoland area,” Ms. Sander is lucky to live in beautiful Tacoma WA with her cats Oscar de la Ren & Stimpy and Frank Furillo.
Baked In Seattle
ISBN 9480692152874