It is with great sadness that we share news of the death of Luci Shaw, known to the Regent community as a longtime Writer-in-Residence, the Poetry Editor of CRUX, a former Board of Governors member, and a treasured friend.
Luci died on December 1, 2025, in Bellingham, Washington, at age ninety-six. She remained funny, attentive, and hospitable even in her last days.
A prolific and highly-regarded poet, Luci published eighteen collections of poetry and co-authored and edited nineteen volumes of non-fiction. Her first collection, Listen to the Green, was published in 1971; her most recent, Poems: An Incremental Life, came out in April 2025. Luci’s poems garnered numerous literary awards, and her cumulative literary legacy was recognized with the Kenneth Taylor Lifetime Achievement Award, the Denise Levertov Award for Creative Writing in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, and the Wheaton College Alumna of the Year Award.
Luci was born in London, England, in 1928. As the daughter of medical missionaries, she and her family spent time living in England, Australia, Canada, and beyond. She spent her high school years in Toronto and then attended Wheaton College, earning a degree in English with High Honors in 1953. In interviews, Luci recalled “writing little verses” from early childhood, but noted that at Wheaton “everything changed: creative writing was valued … I dove into literature like it was a swimming pool. It was wonderful.” Also at Wheaton, Luci met Professor Clyde Kilby, who became both a teacher and “a deeply encouraging friend.” When she wrote a lengthy poem for a research assignment, he gave her an “A” and some advice: “Send this to the Atlantic tomorrow.”
After graduating from Wheaton, Luci worked as a Greek tutor, a freelance editor for Moody Press and InterVarsity Press, and the English Stylist for the first edition of The Living Bible. In 1968, she and her husband Harold Shaw began Harold Shaw Publishers in their living room. Luci served as its Vice President and Senior Editor for eighteen years. During this time, the couple raised their five children.
During and after her time in leadership at Harold Shaw Publishers, Luci served as a Contributing Editor for Radix and For the Time Being and Poetry Editor for Regent’s journal, CRUX.
But, mostly, Luci wrote poetry.
She kept a tiny notebook where she wrote down observations made while shopping for vegetables in the grocery store, walking in the forest, or lying in bed. As she told an interviewer, “Poetry is what’s in the trash, under the rug, beyond the line of the horizon. It’s the friend whose son has AIDS, whose daughter is marrying a loser, the lake that is stocked with farmed fish. … A poem is so much more than the sum of its words.” Her poems attend to topics as diverse as whales, pebbles, Advent, and the donation of a cardigan sweater.
As her long-time friend and Regent colleague, Loren Wilkinson, observed, “Luci loved poetry, loved writing poetry, and loved being a poet.”
Luci’s prose work—including work on Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Lent, friendship, and the wonders of nature—was equally lauded. Her 1989 volume God in the Dark: Through Grief and Beyond chronicled the story of her husband Harold’s terminal cancer, from his first diagnosis through her early months of widowhood. With her lifelong friend Madeleine L’Engle, Luci co-authored Friends for the Journey: Two Extraordinary Women Celebrate Friendships Made and Sustained Through the Seasons of Life.
Luci was legendary for her teaching, workshops, and encouragement of new poets. She frequently taught and lectured at Regent College, Seattle Pacific University, New College Berkeley, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and other institutions. It was Luci who gave a significant early push to esteemed poet Malcolm Guite, back when he “only had a self-published pamphlet to [his] name.” In a sonnet written in honour of Luci’s birthday, Guite acknowledged
Kindly encouragement and yet a keen
Eye for the form, for what needs weeding out
To give a poem room to breathe and grow.1
Passionate about the wilderness, Luci viewed the natural world as a “second Bible.” She rowed her way through British Columbia’s Gulf Islands on Regent’s first “Boat Course” in 1995. She went bungee jumping in New Zealand at the age of seventy. She camped in her small tent on roadsides and in remote forests. She was a passionate nature and scenic photographer, catching the autumn reds of oak leaves, the lush tropical greens of Hawaii, and the pinks of the dogwood tree in her front garden.
In 1991, Luci married John Hoyte, an engineer, intrepid adventurer, sailor, writer, and painter. On the third Sunday evening of each month from 1991 to 2011, they opened their home—first in California and then in Bellingham—for “Open Windows,” a gathering for speakers and discussions related to faith and art, “in which questions as well as answers were welcome.”
Luci was an avid knitter and gardener, but her greatest hobby and joy was friendship. The attentiveness displayed in her poetry was extended to every person in her life. She kept friends for sixty years; she devoted herself to friendships with her grandchildren and with people she met at church. She visited, she wrote notes, she brought small gifts, she included new poems in her emails. Luci’s friends remember her as someone who, while never a counselor, was a companion whose deep faith allowed her to express her fears and worries in a way that begat similar frankness in others. She never hesitated to speak the truth, whether to her closest friends or to those in power.
Luci also possessed the gift of generosity. Young poets who nervously accepted invitations for tea at her home always left with small piles of books she had enthusiastically pulled from her shelves. Luci’s hand-knit sweaters became treasured possessions.
Luci’s deep faith in Christ was rooted in her parents’ devotion and nurtured and sustained by her church involvement. She dedicated God in the Dark to St. Mark’s Episcopal, the church where she and Harold worshipped in Geneva, Illinois. In Bellingham, Luci and John treasured their worship and participation at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
Luci loved her family passionately, taking as much joy in their quick phone calls from remote spots as in their most significant accomplishments. She is survived by her husband John; her children Robin, Marian, John, Jeffrey, and Kristin and their spouses; her step-children Jonathan and Elizabeth; and her seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
We invite you to read some of Luci’s poetry on The Regent Vine.
