Christopher Shaw grew up in Schenectady, New York, and attended Bard College for two years. In the seventies he lived in the woods, guided, and worked odd jobs. Later he edited Adirondack Life magazine, and, while there, wrote numerous reviews in the New York Times Book Review and the Washington Post Book World. In the nineties he freelanced and wrote fiction, publishing widely in such places as the New York Times, Capital Region, Outside, New England Review, and through radio commentaries and the show Northern Voices on North Country Public Radio. Later he took his experience of living and working as a guide in the Adirondacks to Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico, as the binational watershed of the free-flowing Usumacinta River underwent dam threats and political and environmental upheaval.  The result was Sacred Monkey River: A Canoe Trip with the Gods (W.W. Norton, 2000), which the Washington Post called, "a magnificent achievement."

In 2018 Shaw retired from teaching writing at Middlebury College after twenty years, during which time he also co-directed with Bill McKibben the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism. He lives in Vermont with his wife Susan Kavanagh and spends much of the year at his remote cabin on the Saranac chain of lakes near Saranac Lake, New York, where he is currently working on his book, The Source. He is available for readings, workshops, lectures, and symposia.