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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).
Frances Joan Mathien is a retired National Park Service archaeologist and adjunct professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico; a research associate at the Office of Archaeological Studies, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs; and a research associate at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico.
![Six assorted stone artifacts, including various arrowhead and tool shapes, are arranged on a gray surface; some have labels or numbers written on them. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/In-Chaco-Canyon_4-400x225.jpg)
Jewelry making in the Southwest has a long history, and the Ancestral Pueblo people left behind elegant necklaces of black, white, red, and turquoise beads, as well as pendants and inlaid objects. Some of the most spectacular items were found in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the site named Pueblo Bonito, a great house excavated by George Pepper in the late 1890s and Neil Judd during the 1920s.
