Martin Shaw is a writer, storyteller and teacher who lives on Dartmoor. He founded the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University, and is director of the Westcountry School of Myth in the UK.

He is the author of the award-winning Mythteller trilogy: A Branch from the Lightning Tree, Snowy Tower and Scatterlings. Recent books include Smokehole, Courting the Wild Twin (both published by Chelsea Green), All Those Barbarians, Wolf Milk, Cinderbiter (with Tony Hoagland) and his Lorca translations, Courting the Dawn (with Stephan Harding).

Dr Shaw has introduced thousands of people to mythology and how it penetrates modern life. For twenty years, he has been a wilderness rites of passage guide, working with at-risk youth, the sick, returning veterans and many women and men seeking a deeper life.