Mike Shaw is the author of the novel The Musician, published by Blue room Books, and co-author with Economist Thomas J. Cunningham, Ph.D. of Understanding Economic Equilibrium: Making your way through an interdependent world, published by Business Expert Press. The two, fiction and non-fiction, were released by their respective publishers within a week of each other in June 2021.
Mike has been writing about and for businesses for more than five decades. His work as a magazine editor and for corporate clients includes more than 15,000 published articles, from investigative pieces adapted by 60 Minutes and ABC 20/20, to ghostwritten articles, white papers, blogs, and two book-length histories: An Entrepreneurial Adventure on the 50th anniversary of Healthdyne Corporation, and The Barn at Sandy Creek about the quest to find, move and reconstruct an antique barn on a family estate.
In the early 1980s, the first of Mike’s marketing firms introduced the concept of using corporate-sponsored publications to establish thought leadership, and began writing and producing custom publications for Fortune 50 companies. After selling that firm in 1990, he turned his attention to small and mid-size healthcare, technology, and financial services firms, developing content to grow their businesses and enhance their competitiveness.
In the 1970s, he created and edited Mobile, Alabama’s city magazine and served as editor of industry-specific publications, including Marina Magazine,and Play Meter Magazine, the leading publication on coin-operated amusements, including the first video games.
Mike has founded and presided over three Atlanta-based marketing agencies. In addition to his weekly podcast, Music Life and Times, with internationally renowned jazz pianist Kevin Bales at musiclifeandtimes.com, he currently writes for corporate clients from his Marietta-based marketing communications firm, Shade Communications. He is also the jazz writer for the Atlanta arts community publication, ArtsATL, and its partner publication, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He holds an M.A. in English from the University of Miami.
As a musician, Mike began performing as a folksinger in the mid-‘60s, then on the road in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, the last five years in New Orleans, performing as a singer-pianist in nightclubs and on concert stages, as a solo artist, in small combos, and for several years heading up a seven-piece New Orleans-based jazz funk band. Now Atlanta-based, Mike and his trio perform locally in clubs and for special events.