Shelley teaches writing at Southern Connecticut State University and publishes in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. She is the author of four award-winning young adult novels, and her short work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. She is the winner of a 2023 de Groot Foundation Writer of Note grant and has also received awards from The North American Review, New Millenium Sunshots, Writer's Digest, WOW: Women on Writing, and the ALA. Her poetry chapbook, Glitterotica, was published by Dancing Girl Press, and she has just written her first full-length memoir, Girls Girls Girls.