About

Sharon is a writer and photographer who lives and blogs in Raton, New Mexico on the Colorado border. Her upcoming books are: NEW MEXICO’S TASTY TRADITIONS: RECOLLECTIONS, RECIPES & PHOTOS (New Mexico Magazine, Dec., 2010) and SHRINES & SIGNS: SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS ACROSS NEW MEXICO (The Countryman Press, 2012). “Shrines & Signs” is the fourth book she has illustrated with her own photos. She is the recipient of a 2010 grant from New Mexico Historic Records Advisory Board/National Archives for the preservation of local documents and vintage photographs housed in the Arthur Johnson Memorial Library.

Niederman received her BA in English from George Washington University and her MA in Journalism from University of Colorado, where she was awarded a full tuition fellowship. At University of New Mexico she studied writing with Tony Hillerman and Rudolfo Anaya. She studied photography at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, D.C.; School of Visual Arts, NYC,; Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and at College of Santa Fe with Tony O’Brien.

She lives with her husband, Charles Henry, her 100-pound Airedale terrier, Buckley, and her English springer spaniel, Samantha, in an historic 1906 home. She loves to cook, travel the back roads of New Mexico, throw parties and bring people together, and spend as much time as possible hiking with her family. She is president of the New Mexico Press Women and a member of the Society of American Travel Writers. She made the move to small town life from Albuquerque about two years ago.

She is the author/editor of a dozen books of travel, cuisine, literature and history of the Southwest. Her articles, reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Denver Post, Boulder Camera, Santa Fe New Mexican, Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Magazine, Sunset Magazine and many more. Her debut novel, Return to Abo (University of New Mexico) was a finalist for the 2006 Willa Award for contemporary Western women’s fiction. Two of her books received the Border Regional Library Award for “literary excellence and enrichment of the cultural heritage of the Southwest,” and she received the  2006 Frank Riley Award from the Society of American Travel Writers commending her “sense of place.” Her collection of historic women’s journals, A Quilt of Words, won first place in history from the National Federation of Press Women. For two decades she operated a successful freelancing business and now concentrates on book projects.