.T. Shawn Taylor began her career in newspaper journalism, working for top publications in the Midwest including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Detroit Free Press, Kansas City Star and the Chicago Tribune. The bulk of her journalism career was spent at the Tribune, where she started as a metro copy editor and freelanced for the feature section before being offered a spot covering cops and courts, and later writing about workplace issues for the business section and Woman News. After leaving the Tribune, she founded Treetop Consulting in 2006, a research, content creation and media consulting firm.

Shawn co-authored her first fiction novel, "As the Wicked Watch," (Harper Collins/William Morrow/October 2021) with Emmy-winning journalist and talk show host Tamron Hall. It is the first installment in the Jordan Manning series imagined by Hall about a Black woman with a forensic background working as a broadcast journalist in Chicago. The second installment is due out in Q1 2024. Shawn also co-wrote "The Girlfriends Guide to Closing the Deal," with Melody Spann Cooper, CEO of Midway Broadcasting Company and owner of Chicago's legendary WVON Radio.

In her career, Shawn has worked on projects requiring expertise in women’s and education issues; legal affairs; entrepreneurship; small business financing; labor and management; civil rights; philanthropy; the aerospace, manufacturing and technology sectors; and workforce development.

Her articles and commentaries have also appeared in Essence and Consumer Reports magazines; Blavity; The Root; and on “NextTV: Change You Can See,” the Chicago Urban League’s Emmy-award winning reality television program on FOX Chicago.

Shawn was born in Alton, Illinois, where "Gone Too Soon" is being filmed.