Shanna Compton's books and chapbooks include Down Spooky, (Winnow Press, 2005), GAMERS: Writers, Artists & Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels, (Soft Skull, 2004), Big Confetti (with Shafer Hall, HEHF 2004), Closest Major Town (HEHF, 2006), and For Girls (Bloof Books, forthcoming in 2007). Her poems and essays have appeared in dozens of publications and several anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 2005, The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel, Bowery Women, Digerati, and the Poetry Foundation website.

She served as Associate Publisher and Director of Publicity at Soft Skull Press from 2002-2007, for which she also edited poetry collections and experimental fictions, designed books, and curated both the Frequency Series and the Soft Skull Sneak Peek Series.

An advocate of DIY and small-scale publishing, she founded the DIY Poetry Publishing Cooperative in 2005 and publishes poetry chapbooks and broadsides via her micropress Half Empty/Half Full. She works as a freelance copywriter and occasionally teaches poetry and publishing.