Tanya Shaffer is a writer, actor, solo performer, theatre producer, and incorrigible travelhead, with a penchant for turning her travels into art. She has toured to over forty cities with her solo show Miss America's Daughters and her play Brigadista. Her most recent play, Baby Taj, loosely based on her travels in India, premiered in October of 2005 at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, California to stellar reviews, and was selected by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, and the San Jose Mercury News as one of the Top Ten shows of the year. It was also nominated for an American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg Award for the best new play to premiere outside of New York City in 2005, and for a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award.

Tanya's solo show Let My Enemy Live Long!, based on her trip up West Africa’s Niger River to the legendary city of Timbuktu, enjoyed an extended run at San Francisco’s Eureka Theatre before going on to the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, and the San Diego Repertory Theatre, as well as colleges and festivals across the country. The show was awarded a 1999 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for solo performance.

In 2003, Tanya’s book, Somebody's Heart is Burning: A Woman Wanderer in Africa, was published by Vintage (a division of Random House, Inc.) It was profiled in Vogue and USA Today and selected by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the Best Books of 2003. Her stories have appeared on Salon.com and in the anthologies Salon.com’s Wanderlust (Villard), A Woman’s Passion for Travel (Traveler’s Tales Books), The Collected Traveler: Morocco (Crown Publishers), Chicken Soup for the Traveler’s Soul (Chicken Soup Publications), The Kindness of Strangers (Lonely Planet Publications), Africa-par-Adventure (First Books), and The May Queen (J.P. Tarcher), as well as being excerpted in two gift books. They have also been translated into Italian and read on Australian National Radio. Tanya's essays and stories have also appeared in the magazines Speakeasy, Callboard, Inquiring Mind, and Justice Matters.

As an actor, Tanya has appeared with the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Old Globe Theatre, the California Shakespeare Festival, TheatreWorks, A Traveling Jewish Theatre, El Teatro de la Esperanza, the B Street Theatre, the Willows Theatre Company, Center Repertory Company, and many others. She has received Dramalogue Awards, Dean Goodman’s Choice Awards, and Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards.

Tanya has produced numerous tours and productions with her company, Larger than Life Productions. She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband, social entrepreneur David Green, and their son, Tavi. She hopes, one day, to have a dog.