Greetings! I began my writing career in 2015 following the death of my beloved mother. The lessons and world views she instilled during my life as I grew and developed maintain a strong thematic presence throughout much of what I write. Her emphasis on the importance of love, kindness, and concern for all is the primary influence behind my material focusing on occasionally uncomfortable topics like emotional vulnerability, abuse, and existentialism. It isn't all mopey, though - I do like to let the hair down and writing about the fun things in life. Like owning an adorable dog that has enormous, "I just saw a ghost" eyes, for instance. While I use this website predominantly for hosting poetry and/or thought pieces, my primary commercially-marketed project is a sci-fi/fantasy series of novels which I originally self-published. The first is titled Continuity and was published in 2016. A sequel, Continuity: Coalescence, was released two years later. I'm thankful to say both were recently picked up by a traditional publisher, Wild Ink Publishing that will be releasing one, consolidated version of both in December 2024. Announcements on this moving forward will also be posted here. As far as the rest, I'm an ex-Vanderbilt baseball player (c/o '09) with a degree in Economics & Corporate Strategy who is ironically trying to forging a career that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with either of those things. Before my scribbles began, I was an insurance agent for the better part of a decade. Other than that, I enjoy simple living along with my aforementioned co-author, Pip the Pekingese! Thank you for visiting the website. I hope you enjoy your stay, and I look forward to connecting with any and all. No matter who you are or what you believe, you are warmly welcome! M.E. Shao
I’m going to keep this short. It’s no secret that this political season has gotten people riled up. Everywhere we turn we see partisan this, negative that, she did this, he said that, and so on. And to a certain extent, it’s warranted. Americans feel cheated by the conditions they’ve been forced to live under, … More Unity
There’s a very particular reason my dog is the featured image of this post: he’s never, ever let me down. Being let down is probably one of the worst feelings in the human condition. There’s just something about it that cuts deep into our psyche when someone we thought was in our corner turns their … More Loyalty
Communication. It’s the most important interpersonal skill one can have. The quality of our relationships is effectively dictated by our ability to articulate the various ideas and concepts in our heads. We have a thought, and then we attempt to communicate that thought through language. This applies to every single interaction we have with people. … More Why I Love Writing
Its no secret that humanity is going through one of its tensest periods in our short history on this planet. Class warfare, social control, and behind the scenes manipulation has dominated the population for as long as we can look back. The individuals who had the ability to think openly, see the world as a … More The Real Revolution: the War We Don’t Know We’re Fighting
I feel compelled to write this after zipping through my news feeds and reading the persistently biased headlines of our lovely mainstream media. Human beings are just that – they are human beings. Regardless of your opinion (which, ironically, is usually formulated based upon third party reporting without any first hand interaction whatsoever), people generally … More Human Beings are Not One Dimensional
In my quest to promote my book, I have to keep something in mind. There was one very specific reason as to why I wrote it. My original goal was to build my mom a library. After speaking with the city manager of the town which I’m from, I learned that our local library was … More Purpose
President. Police officer. CEO. Pastor. Janitor. Actor. Friend. Dishonest. Generous. Lobbyists. Girl Scouts. Dog lovers. Black. White. All of the words you just read are used to describe individuals – or entire groups of people. Behind each of these labels lie actual people. Human beings, no different than you or I. I’d like for us … More Labels: How They Cloud Our Judgment
Well, now that I’m done with book # 2, I can start committing time and energy into something other than actually writing. Marketing, here we go. Its funny to realize throughout this process of becoming a writer how many stages there are. First, you think to yourself : Man, I bet its hard to write a … More The Time Has Come To Market
Sometimes there’s an unmistakable instinct where you look at someone and realize – they’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish (x). Consider this one of those instances. There is much I would like to accomplish with my writing, but it’s difficult to blindly attempt to continue without the guidance of someone versed in the industry. … More I need a literary agent
I recently watched a very entertaining documentary that highlighted some of the antics of the well-known hacker group, Anonymous. Admittedly, before I viewed it, I didn’t have a whole heck of a lot of knowledge about the group. I, probably like most of you, assumed that Anonymous was a small group of hooded kids in their … More Don’t Piss Off Anonymous
How the World Should Work 