Major Works
- Legends of Mississippi (2011)
- Redemption (2011)
- The Shadow Mountain Horror (2011)
- Beasts (2010)
- Hillbilly Blues Vol 2 (2010)
- Dooley’s Disappearing Dust (2010)
- Yearning for Midnight (2010) (poetry)
- Petals of a Rose (poetry)
- The Enchanted Unicorn (children’s book)
Biography of Mary Joan Turner (Shannon Riley)
Mary Joan Turner was born in 1941 near Ripley, Mississippi, and she still lives in Ripley. She sang in local bands in her early 20’s. She turned to writing poetry, fiction, and articles in her 40’s. Her work has been published under the pen name Shannon Riley in multiple magazines and newspapers.
Her fiction, poetry and articles have been published in more than 250 magazines, anthologies and newspapers throughout the U.S. and Canada and various websites. She started her own small independedent publishing company, Southern Rose Productions, in New Albany, Mississippi, in 1988, publishing the horror magazines Tapestry, Dark Side, and Midnight Express, the mainstream poetry journal Southern Rose Review, the Shamrock Market Report and Fiction Writer’s Review. She also edited the non-genre poetry anthology Heartsongs, A Treasury of Verse.
Her own chapbooks include Petals of a Rose (poetry), The Enchanted Unicorn (children’s fantasy), Hillbilly Blues vols. I and II, and Beasts (horror fiction), which has been recommended for a 2001 Bram Stoker Award. She was named one of the best new poets of the year 1987, and included in Who’s Who in U.S. Writers, Editors, and Poets, 1986-1989.
In 1994 her short horror story Trophy won first place in the Gum Tree Celebration of Writing Competition.
Related Websites
- Local gal’s music was lost, now it’s found. Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 2009.
- Read Trophy, by Shannon Riley
- Bibliography for Shannon Riley