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).

Tom Leech

Tom Leech has nearly fifty years’ experience in printing, papermaking, and book arts. From 2001 through 2021 he was the curator of the Press at the Palace of the Governors. He received the 2013 Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the 2014 Carl Hertzog Award for Excellence in Book Design, and the 2015 Edgar Lee Hewett Award. Several of Tom’s marbled and handmade papers are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tom is also published with the Museum of New Mexico Press, featuring Gustave Baumann & Friends: Artist Cards from Holidays Past and Printing the Spirit: Gustave Baumann’s Santos.

A young girl in a dark plaid dress sits for a formal portrait, holding a photo case, framed by an ornate gold oval frame and a decorative case. [gen-ai]

Fading Memories: Echoes of the Civil War

BY DANIEL KOSHAREK, MEREDITH DAVIDSON, AND THOMAS LEECH [M]ay my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I forget the difference between the parties to that bloody conflict. I may say if this war is to be forgotten, I ask in the name of all things sacred what shall men remember? – Frederick Douglass, address at the Graves