Ramona Emerson Books In Order

Publication Order of Rita Todacheene Books

Ramona Emerson is a horror fiction author from Albuquerque that is best known for her debut work “Shutter” which he published in 2022. Her debut work featured a forensic photographer who has to confront the ghosts of victims from the many Albuquerque crime scenes she has worked on.

The author is an alumnus of the University of New Mexico and has a Media Arts degree that she earned in 1997. The author has a creative writing MFA from the Santa Fe-based Institute of American Indian Arts.

She is also the creator of The Mayors of Shiprock among several other bestselling films over the years. With more than twenty years working as a photographer, editor, and writer, she has won all manner of gongs for her work.
Ramona Emerson has been a WGBH Producer Fellow, was nominated for an Emmy, a Tribeca All Access Grantee, a Sundance Native Lab Fellow, and a Fellow at the Time Warner Storyteller Course.

She also works with Kelly Byars her husband, running Reel India Pictures the production company. Shutter her debut novel recently made the long list for the National Book Award.

Just like many people, Ramona Emerson got drawn into creative pursuits and particularly filmmaking as she felt her stories were not being told. Moreover, she also believed that even when such stories were told, they were from the perspective of people who never lived in her community.

Following her graduation from the University of New Mexico, she could not find any opportunities or jobs in the film industry. After calling all manner of video and film firms she finally was invited to apply as a forensic photographer. Still, she had to learn the procedures and get certified which she would do over about 16 years.

Over this time, she did some photography and a lot of video work and learned about precision and clarity. It was from this that she decided she needed to tell other people’s stories as she could bring out the emotional and aesthetic nature better.
Ultimately “Shutter” her debut novel started out as a documentary project. During that time, she had been winding down her job as a video production manager, even as she went to a New Mexico writers’ workshop.

Things soon started bleeding into each other and it was not long before she was penning short stories about her grandmother. Things exploded when she began working on her MFA which is when she knew she was destined to be an author.

When Ramona Emerson was getting ready to head to IAIA for her MFA program, she requested a letter of recommendation from Joan Tewkesbury, her writing workshop instructor.

The latter asked what she intended to sturdy and she replied that she was interested in screenwriting. Joan said that the only way she would write a recommendation is if Ramona promised to study fiction writing instead.
She had never believed she could be a fiction writer but the instructor wanted her to keep doing what she had been doing at the workshop.

Once she started penning her manuscript for “Shutter,” it gave her the freedom to tap into her whole life including her family, her past, and her people.

She writes about the influence of her grandmother that took care of all of them while they were young and is the strongest person she knows. She also taught her how to read and motivate her by telling her that she had writing talent.
Ramona was also influenced by her mother who was a painter but for the most part a photographer. As such, she still has memories of her mother taking her to a darkroom where they made images with light, sometimes even without a camera.
When it came to writing, she took classes with the civilian forensic until of the Albuquerque Police Department and learned most of what she writes about from real criminal cases.

“Shutter” by Ramona Emerson is a blood-chilling debut work set in the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. It is a work that is equal parts supernatural horror, gripping crime thriller, and a poignant portrayal of how one girl is coming to age while living on a reservation.
Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer who is employed by the police force in Albuquerque and uses her photography skills she has solved many cases given that she is brilliant at capturing details.

In fact, Rita has a dark secret as she often sees the ghost of many crime victims. It is these ghosts that usually point her toward the many clues that other investigators never pay any attention to.

She has a portal that she uses to access traumatized spirits and lives a life terrorized as the ghosts will not let her sleep and keep on sabotaging her life.

Her psychologically harrowing and taboo ability had driven her to leave the reservation where she had been brought up by her grandmother. She has since been isolated from her friends and even gotten in trouble with law enforcement.
When Rita is charged with photographing the scene of an alleged suicide on an overpass on the highway, the discombobulated and furious ghost of the victim that insists she was murdered latches onto her.

The ghost forces her to go on a revenge quest against her killers which soon lands her in the crosshairs of one of the most vicious cartels in Albuquerque.

Written in gruesome and sparkling prose, “Shutter” is an explosive debut from what has to be one of the most powerful new voices in crime fiction.

Ramona Emerson’s “Gallup” takes a fresh approach to personal documentary as it combines the watercolor paintings from Susan Hawley and the photographs of Roswell Angier.

She combines the journal entries from both of them and explores the time they spent in the New Mexico town of Gallup during the early 1980s and the late 1970s.

It was a place where myths and histories meet and Hawkey and Anguier work through diverse media to showcase a place where many versions of American and Native life flowed together.

Gallup is shown as a place that is difficult to know in its beauty, even as it is a reflection of the long shadow of the disenfranchisement of Native Americans. Sober about social realities, Hawlety and Angier nevertheless managed to find lighthearted humor in their daily living in the small town.

The author takes his readers from the motels to the Navajo creation story, from an inherited suitcase filled with artifacts from the Plains Indians to a rodeo. Through images, Emerson takes us from Chaco Canyon to Canyon de Chelly, from bars to fast food joints.
Beyond the brilliant images of the desert full of sunsets and Airstream trailers, we find struggles over group and personal identity at some of the most recognizable crossroads in the United States.