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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).
Robin Babb (opens in a new tab) is a writer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the associate editor of edible New Mexico and The Bite. She has worked in newspaper and magazine editorial for ten years, and her work has been published in the Kenyon Review, Phoebe Journal, New Mexico Magazine, Eaten, Civil Eats, Southwest Contemporary, and other places. In 2024 she was awarded the New Mexico Writers Annual Grant and the Center for Regional Studies Fellowship. She likes to write about animals, books, video games, and the end of the world. She is currently working on a collection of essays.
By Robin Babb At the entrance to the gallery, a quote on the wall provides context and raison d’être for the Out West exhibition. It’s from Santa Fe author Walter Cooper’s recent book Unbuttoned: Gay Life in the Santa Fe Art Scene: So much of our queer history has been swept under the rug, it’s almost as if we never existed.
BY ROBIN BABB Whenever Billy Schenck came by Elaine Horwitch’s gallery in Santa Fe, the whole staff stopped what they were doing to talk to the handsome cowboy painter. Wearing his beat-up old cowboy boots and with a bandana always hanging out of the back pocket of his blue jeans, Schenck cut quite the figure amidst the refined Santa Fe art world.
