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For over a century, El Palacio has been a forum for voices exploring New Mexico’s art, archaeology, history, and landscape. Explore the writers, photographers, historians, and scientists whose perspectives have defined the magazine’s pages—past and present.
Arthur Sze is the current U.S. Poet Laureate. Sze is a poet, translator, and editor. He is the author of twelve books, including Into the Hush, Sight Lines, and others. Sze’s poems have been translated into fifteen languages, and he is the recipient of the National Book Award among many other honors. He lives in Santa Fe.
Deborah Jackson Taffa is a citizen of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo. Her memoir Whiskey Tender was a 2024 National Book Award Finalist and was longlisted for the 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Taffa serves as the director of the MFA in creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Cara Romero is an award-winning contemporary fine art photographer. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero’s expansive oeuvre has been informed by formal training in film, digital, fine art, and commercial photography. She maintains a studio in Santa Fe, regularly participates in Native American art fairs, and was featured in PBS’ Craft in America (2019).
Alastair Lee Bitsóí (Diné) is from the Navajo Nation community of Naschitti, below the Chooshgai Mountains on the New Mexico–Arizona state line. He has been an award-winning news reporter for The Navajo Times and The Salt Lake Tribune. He also formerly served as communications director for the Indigenous-led land conservation nonprofit, Utah Diné Bikéyah, which advocates for Bears Ears National Monument. He freelances as a storyteller, writer, and journalist.
By Joe Saenz One hundred years ago, on June 3, 1924, the U.S. Forest Service designated the Gila Wilderness as the country’s first official wilderness area. The designation was spurred by the advocacy of writer and conservationist, Aldo Leopold. Leopold had been working for the fledging Forest Service for ten years when, in 1922, he proposed that the federal government set aside protected land for a wilderness area.
