Shawl is the co-author (with Cynthia Ward) of Writing the Other: Bridging Cultural Differences for Successful Fiction, a book derived from the authors' workshop of the same name, in which participants explore techniques to help them write credible characters outside their own cultural experience. Her short stories have appeared in Asimov's SF Magazine, the Infinite Matrix, Strange Horizons, Semiotext and numerous other magazines and anthologies.

Among the writers who influence her work, she has named Colette and Raymond Chandler. Reflection's Edge

Shawl is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and a 1992 graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. She is a board member of Clarion West and one of the founders of the Carl Brandon Society. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and the Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award, and Writing the Other received special mention for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. In 2008, she won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for Filter House.

In 2009, she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.

Shawl started attending the Residential College of the University of Michigan at the age of 16, but did not graduate. She lives in Seattle, Washington, where she reviews books for the Seattle Times as a freelance contributor.[1] Search Results | Seattle Times Newspaper

Fiction

• "Cruel Sistah," Asimov's SF Magazine, October/November 2005; Year's Best Fantasy & Horror #19, St. Martin's Press, NY, NY, August 2006.
• "Matched," The Infinite Matrix/i. (Excerpt from the novel The Blazing World, co-sponsored by the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs.) May 2005.
• "Maggies," Dark Matter: Reading the Bones, edited by Sheree R. Thomas, 2004, NY: Warner Books.
• "Deep End," So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan, 2004, Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
• "Vapors," Wet: More Aqua Erotica, Mary Anne Mohanraj (editor), Three Rivers Press, NY, NY.
• "Shiomah's Land," Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, March, 2001.
• "At the Huts of Ajala," Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, NY, NY, July, 2000, Warner Books.
• "The Pragmatical Princess," Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, January, 1999.
• "The Rainses'," Isaac Asimov's Ghosts, NY, NY, August, 1995, Ace.
• "The Rainses'," Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, April, 1995.
• "I Was a Teenage Genetic Engineer," Semiotext(e) SF, NY, NY, April, 1989, Columbia University.

Non-fiction

• "To Jack Kerouac, to Make Much of Space and Time," Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies, L. Timmel Duchamp (editor), Aqueduct Press, Seattle, WA, March, 2006.
• Writing the Other: A Practical Guide, with co-author Cynthia Ward, Aqueduct Press, Seattle, WA, December 2005.