"[1][2] Shaik's research on the Société d’Economie, an early Black Catholic mutual aid society, received support from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the Kittredge Fund, and led to her 2021 book Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood.

Shaik is the subject of a film by director Kaveri Kaul, who takes the author to her paternal grandfather's birthplace in Kolkata.

She reported for the Miami News and New Orleans Times-Picayune before joining McGraw-Hill and working in editorial positions for a decade.

For her work in trade fiction, Shaik has been praised as a writer in “the ranks of black women writers preserving the voice of the Afro-American experience.”[1] The Mayor of New Orleans: Just Talking Jazz[17] was “the first publication in book form by this native of New Orleans whose keen ear for dialogue and languid style help capture the special ambiance of Southern Louisiana.”[18] What Went Missing and What Got Found is a lyrical short story collection with undertones of the blues.

[27] Shaik received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study Aesthetics and Popular Culture at the University of Chicago in 1981.

As an emerging writer, in the fall of 1989, Shaik was named, along with Rita Dove, David Bradley, Mark Mathabane, and Trey Ellis, as one of five writers under 35 who "...will play a significant role in shaping the future of Afro-American literature in the 21st century,” by the Forsythe County Public Library.

Shaik held a literature residency at the New Orleans Public Schools Africana Studies Program in October 2002.