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About the Author

Posted on December 12, 2008 by S. Riley

In a land where ghosts and ghost stories were as common and accepted as the gray, curling moss dripping from the oak and pecan trees, the art of storytelling was a rite of passage in any young Southerners' life. Shanna Riley – quite literally raised "on the bayou" – was not immune to this bard-like existence.

Writing since she could hold a pen, Shanna has put out an extensive mess of words that have, over the years, accumulated into a myriad of web sites, blogs, and even a few published works. Words do not – yet – a paycheck make, however, and she currently pays the bills in a government job wherein she is titled i.t. tech and web designer. She keeps up her geeky street cred with a website, Skatoolaki Online, and blog, Digitopus.

Shanna resides in Louisiana's lovely capital city of Baton Rouge with her boyfriend of seven years, four cats, and a fish named Google.

And, no, her other car is not a pirogue.

I Write, Therefore I Am

I have stretched myself ever-so-thin across the vastness of cyberspace - a story here, an essay there, a rant for good measure, and a blog post there, there, and even over there. In the time I have been online - since 1997 - I have littered cyberspace with my words, thoughts, and stories.

There are many places you could surf to find other works of mine. Rather than your Google-stalking me, however, I thought I'd make it easy on you and throw a few links on here. Enjoy.

I am currently in the never-ending process of adding my writing to my "writing website", The Writings of Shanna Riley; admittedly, I haven't gotten very far. If it isn't on there, my website, or my blog it's probably sitting on a floppy somewhere or collecting dust in a notebook waiting to be transcribed.

For fresher content, you can check out the articles I randomly publish at Helium, HubPages, and Squidoo by perusing the repository blog I post them all to: ShannaRileyBlog (yes, I realize my flair for naming is rather lacking).

If you're into something a bit more morbidly-inclined, you may be interested in my hobby, graving, and/or my pet project, The Brandon Children.

Graving, as I define it, is the pastime or hobby of viewing and/or recording the information from headstones in cemeteries and mausoleums for pleasure or record-keeping purposes. The term comes from the website community of Find A Grave, which is a free, user-contributed grave database with over twenty million graves listed - famous and non-famous - worldwide. I participate in graving often and am the Iberville Parish Keeper - responsible for cleaning up the cemetery records for that parish on the website - for Find A Grave. My personal graving blog, wherein I record my adventures in graving and talk about related topics, is A Graver's Journal.

My "pet project" involves a mid-1800s cemetery - lost and seemingly forgotten - just off the Natchez Trace in Adams County, Mississippi. I stumbled upon it in May of 2006 and my curiosity was considerably piqued. The graveyard contained beautiful, white marble headstones for seven children; all from the same family. The family obviously had some wealth; the gravestones were elaborate and the children's mother - who left heart-rending, elegiacal words etched into her children's graves - was obviously learned. I have come to learn a great deal about the Brandon family through my years of research - the results of which are compiled on my website, The Brandon Children.

Find Me - Contact Me

If you would like to contact me, you may do so by email (shanna.riley at Gmail) or by instant messenger. I use Digsby and am always signed on to all of my i.m. accounts at once. You may get in touch with me through your i.m. client of choice:

I am almost always online - though not always at my computer. If I do not respond to you right away, please just leave a message; I will respond as soon as I return to the keyboard.

If you are into the social networking scene, you can hit me up on either MySpace or Facebook.

I would love to hear what you think of The Syls Empire, and if you are interested in helping me expand the story or use what I have written so far to develop into a comic, book, show, movie, etc. Thanks for taking the time to read the site and learn about the Syls.