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).

Charlotte Jusinski

Charlotte Jusinski served as the editor of El Palacio from 2019 to 2023. Charlotte previously worked as copy editor for the Santa Fe Reporter and penned their award-winning “Acting Out” theater review column. She also received a second-place Top of the Rockies award from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for her coverage of a nonprofit that provides aid to Native elders on the Navajo Nation.

The residents of Duran, New Mexico, came together and requested their town be added to the National Register of Historic Places. Photograph by Carrie McCarthy.

The Story of Buildings

By Charlotte Jusinski with Jeff Pappas Jeff Pappas. Photograph by Kevin Lange. Now in its third season, the Department of Cultural Affairs’s podcast, Encounter Culture, explores the exhibitions, stories, and personalities of the largest governmental department in New Mexico. Whether focusing on an art exhibition, Indigenous history, or ghostly experiences, Encounter Culture offers a unique look into what makes our state’s cultural institutions tick—and this episode with State Historic Preservation Officer Dr.

A building with a conical roof stands near an arena at sunset, surrounded by trees and open fields under a partly cloudy sky. [gen-ai]

Challenging History

By Charlotte Jusinski The town of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, is quiet and pastoral. The streets of the farming and ranching community are gravelly and pocked, and rusty signs for Billy the Kid’s grave or Fort Sumner Lake dot the shoulders like tired but richly patinaed sentinels. Sometimes the whole town smells vaguely of petrichor, thanks to the Pecos River lurching lazily through the plains nearby, and irrigation ditches lining the streets fill the fields thick with green crops each spring and summer.

A man in suspenders stands beside a motorcycle in a workshop, surrounded by tools and equipment, with a neutral expression. [gen-ai]

Tin Man

By Charlotte Jusinksi I first started researching my article about the Bosque Redondo Memorial (see page 24) in September 2019. I worked steadily for a few months, and was about halfway done when, on March 9, 2020, I learned I had to put it on ice for at least one issue’s worth of time. Of course, that initial “two-week” shutdown stretched for nearly two years.

A person in a black dress stands with arms crossed against a weathered wooden building in a rural, grassy area at sunset. Another building is visible in the background. [gen-ai]

Like Butta

by Charlotte Jusinski Ever have a whole chunk of time at work go so smoothly you barely have to think about it? All the puzzle pieces fall into place, everyone gets along with everyone else, the whole organization runs like a well-oiled machine? You are comfortable in your power, you and your colleagues are in perfect harmony, and the result of your work comes out impeccable, exactly as it should be?