Turner co-wrote and co-produced her first film, 1994's
Go Fish, with her then-girlfriend, director
Rose Troche. Turner also starred in the film, portraying a young woman named Max whose friends help her find a new girlfriend, Ely, portrayed by VS Brodie. Director
Kevin Smith was a fan of the movie, particularly a scene in it wherein, in an imagined sequence, some of a character's friends chastise her for "selling out" and sleeping with a man, and used it as an inspiration for his own take on a similar theme in his own film
Chasing Amy. Turner has cameos in both
Chasing Amy and Smith's later film
Dogma. Smith also named
Joey Lauren Adams' character in Smith's
Mallrats after Turner. Another early film appearance was in
Cheryl Dunye's 1996 independent film
The Watermelon Woman. Turner and
I Shot Andy Warhol director
Mary Harron wrote the screenplay for the
film version of
Bret Easton Ellis'
American Psycho, which Harron directed. Turner has a small role in the film, in which she delivers the in-joke, "I'm not a
lesbian!". A writer and story editor for the first two seasons of
The L Word, Turner also made several guest appearances on the show as
Alice Pieszecki's screenwriter ex-girlfriend,
Gabby. In 2005, Turner wrote the script for
BloodRayne. It was nominated for a
Golden Raspberry Award for
Worst Screenplay in 2006. In the documentary
Tales from the Script, she stated in an interview that director
Uwe Boll only used about 25% of her screenplay. In 2005, she co-wrote the script for
The Notorious Bettie Page with Mary Harron, who directed the film. Turner and Harron collaborated again as screenwriter and director, respectively, on the 2018 film
Charlie Says. Turner's first foray into web television was the 2008 online drama series,
FEED, directed by Mel Robertson, launched on
AfterEllen.com. In 2014, she appeared alongside
Nayo Wallace,
Candis Cayne and
Cathy DeBuono in Jane Clark's horror comedy film
Crazy Bitches. Turner has directed several short films, such as
Hummer and
Hung, which have appeared in many international film festivals. In 2019,
The New Yorker published an essay by Turner entitled "My Childhood in a Cult," about growing up in the
Lyman Family. Four years later, Turner published a memoir, ''When the World Didn't End
, expanding greatly on the story of her youth, and continuing on to her adolescence in an abusive household. Kirkus Reviews'' called the book "a moving portrait of a bizarre childhood written with emotional nuance and bittersweet deliverance ... The author’s prose is reflective, vivid, and confessional, a rich combination full of striking imagery." ==Personal life==