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.

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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.

Woman with long dark hair and sunglasses wearing a textured rust-colored top and a green stone necklace, standing against a plain light background.

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.

A woman with straight brown hair wearing a dark turtleneck and long, beaded earrings poses against a plain white background.

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).

James McGrath Morris

James McGrath Morris (opens in a new tab) is a biographer and writer of narrative nonfiction. His books include the New York Times Bestselling Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, The First Lady of the Black Press, which was awarded the Benjamin Hooks National Book Prize; Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power; and Jailhouse Journalism: The Four Estate Behind Bars among others. His newest book is Tony Hillerman: A Life. McGrath Morris has written extensively for newspapers and magazines, as well as some academic journals. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he spent a decade as a journalist, a decade working in the book and magazine business, and a decade as a high school teacher.

A man stands by a lake holding up a string of five fish, with a small rowboat and mountains visible in the background. [gen-ai]

On the Fly

For Tony Hillerman, there was only one thing that could lure him away from his typewriter, and that was his fishing rod. On slow news days, beginning in the 1950s, Hillerman would trade his seat at the Santa Fe New Mexican for a spot on the banks of rivers and streams in Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Woodrow “Woody” Wilson, a journeyman printer at the paper, first introduced Hillerman to the almost inaccessible Rio Brazos, a moderate-sized stream that feeds the Rio Chama north of Santa Fe.

A man sits at a cluttered desk with papers, a typewriter, and office machines in the background, looking at the camera and smiling. [gen-ai]

Hillerman Opens his New Mexico Chapter

By James McGrath Morris When Tony Hillerman left behind his native Oklahoma for New Mexico in 1952, journalism paid his bills—but he dreamed of one day writing fiction. Santa Fe would be an important stop on his path to eventually becoming one of America’s best-known writers of mysteries. In a new biography, Tony Hillerman: A Life, author James McGrath Morris tells Hillerman’s story as no one has before; here, we excerpt Chapter 11, in which Hillerman arrives in Santa Fe.