Shaj Mac was born in 1965 in Prentiss, Mississippi to farmers. The land that her parents lived on was owned by her fathers family who were former slaves.
In 1966 Shaj's parents separated due to domestic violence. Her mother moved to the Midwest with her five-children to start a new life. By 1974 her parents reunited, and her mother moved her family from Indiana to Michigan where she lived until she was twenty-one years old.
Although both Shaj's parents came from Misissippi they came from two different socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds, with difference life experiences, regarding family and marriage which had a tremendous affect on their relationship, and their children.
Shaj's writing reflects her experience with the different cultures of people of African descent, the impact of alcoholism, an domestic violence, as well as the impact of slavery on African American families with an emphasis on the African American male, along with mother daughter dynamics.
Currently Shaj Mac is residing in Mississippi with her husband, and senior mother.