[2] Her parents met and got married in Toronto, but soon moved to Langley, British Columbia[3] to start a mushroom farm.
During this time she produced sound poetry and radio documentaries, including How to Breathe the Air of our Ancestors, which won a Gold Medal at the New York Festivals in 1998.
CNN Connect the World called it an "incredible story", while the Toronto Star named it one of the 10 Must See Films at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
Shin is a poet and fiction writer, with work published in various anthologies and magazines in both Canada and the United States.
[15] Author Nino Ricci referred to her first volume of poetry, The Last Thing Standing as "A beautiful and memorable book.
Ann Shin writes about love, loss and the idea of home with clarity, wit and grace".
[16] Of her second collection of acclaimed poetry, author and poet Karen Connelly wrote, "… This short, dazzling collection of poems contains a universe — nothing short of North American life in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.