Shěn Fén 沈汾 (sometimes also written 沈玢) was a Wú/Southern-Táng-period (902–975) Daoist literatus active in Jiāngsū. He held the offices of cháoqǐng láng 朝請郎 (“front-echelon gentleman for court audiences”) and qián xíng Lìshuǐ xiànlìng 前行溧水縣令 (former magistrate of Lìshuǐxiàn 溧水縣 in modern Jiāngsū) — the appointment that places him in the Wú kingdom (902–937) and/or its successor the Southern Táng (937–975). His sole attested work, the [[KR5a0307|Xù xiānzhuàn 續仙傳]] (DZ 295) in three juan, deliberately continues [[KR5a0306|DZ 294 Lièxiān zhuàn]], the Shénxiān zhuàn 神仙傳 by Gě Hóng, and the (now-lost) earlier collections; he was prompted to write by the loss of classical works (fénjí 焚籍) during the Zhōnghé 中和 reign period (881–885), when the sack of Cháng’ān by Huáng Cháo sent Emperor Xīzōng 僖宗 into exile.
Two further Wú-Southern-Táng witnesses identify the author of the Xù xiānzhuàn: Wú Shū 吳淑 (947–1002) in JiāngHuái yìrén lù 江淮異人錄 has an entry on a Daoist wizard “shìyù 侍御 Shěn Fén” (19a–b); Liú Chóngyuǎn 劉崇遠 in Jīnhuá zǐ zábiān 金華子雜編 2.60 uses the same appellation explicitly to refer to the author of the Xù xiānzhuàn. Some sources also give the author’s personal name as Fēn 玢 (cf. ChángGuǎngfù 240; Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù 146.1252). His own preface, where he refers to himself as “Fēn 汾,” signs the matter beyond dispute.