Contributors

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

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

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

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).

Fred Friedman

Fred Friedman (opens in a new tab) oversaw New Mexico railroad issues for decades and is recognized as an authority on the subject. As a board member of the Historical Society of New Mexico, he lectures on numerous aspects of New Mexico’s railroads.

A vintage train station with a “WELCOME” sign, an old building labeled “LAMY,” and part of a silver train car visible at dusk. [gen-ai]

Tracks Through Time

Part 2: The Lamy Branch Line 1880 to presentby Fred Friedman Read part I of this history in El Palacio's Winter 2021 edition, here. Even with the Iron Steed’s arrival in Santa Fe in February of 1880, railroads came late to New Mexico. The states and territories surrounding New Mexico enjoyed at least some railroading presence prior to that time. Within a few years, however, systems seeking to compete with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe were laying track into and through New Mexico, as well as constructing depots while acquiring economic and political influence.

Old, unused railroad tracks run through a grassy, shrub-filled landscape with hills and trees under a partly cloudy sky at sunset. [gen-ai]

Tracks Through Time

By Fred Friedman Confessions of a Trespasser Even before I was familiar with the Lamy branch line technically and historically, I was attracted to it. From the first time I stood in that 56.5-inch-wide space between the rusted rails, I seemed to have had a connection with it. It was easy, while walking on those old wooden ties, to imagine people and things moving over them more than one hundred and forty years ago.