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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).
Lauren Camp (opens in a new tab) served as the second New Mexico Poet Laureate. She is the author of nine poetry collections, including In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), winner of the New Mexico Book Award, which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park, and Is Is Enough (Texas Review Press, 2026). Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, French, and Arabic.
Lauren Camp: The goal was to go everywhere, county to county across the state, reaching many small, rural communities. I started in Alamogordo, in the south-central part of New Mexico, reading poems and answering questions, then watching with delight as everyone in the vast crowd wrote in response to a prompt I gave. The next day, I watched the dunes shift at White Sands, restoring, remaking.
![Large rock formations with rugged surfaces and sparse vegetation under a partly cloudy sky. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/D.Camp-Penitente-03-400x225.jpg)
—Lauren Camp is the author of five poetry collections, including Took House, published by Tupelo Press in 2020. Her honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award and the New Mexico- Arizona Book Award. See more at laurencamp.com. All photographs by D. Camp.
![A gravestone for Mabel Dodge Luhan, dated February 26, 1879, with flowers and rocks placed on top, sits in a snowy outdoor setting. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Poems_1-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
