Shaw was born in 1961, in Auckland, New Zealand and grew up in Matangi and Christchurch.
[1] Shaw received the 1999 Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship[2] and the Creative New Zealand 2001 Berlin Writers Residency.
[1] About Griffen’s Heart (2009) was listed as a 2010 Notable Young Adult Fiction Book by Storylines[4] and was shortlisted in the 2010 LIANZA Children and Young Adult Book Awards.
[1][5] The Children's Pond (2014) was shortlisted for the 2015 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel.
[6] In 2018, Shaw won the Tessa Duder Award for her manuscript Ursa.