The author of the award-winning Mythteller trilogy, A Branch From The Lightning Tree, Snowy Tower, Scatterlings and founder of the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University who is also director of the Westcountry School of Myth in the UK. He has introduced thousands of people to mythology and how it penetrates modern life.

For twenty years Shaw has been a wilderness rites of passage guide, working with at-risk youth, the sick, returning veterans and many women and men seeking a deeper life.

His translations of Gaelic poetry and folklore (with Tony Hoagland) have been published in Orion Magazine, Poetry International, Kenyon Review, Poetry Magazine and the Mississippi Review.