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).

Marlon Magdalena

Marlon Magdalena (opens in a new tab) is a Native American artist, educator, and performer from the Pueblo of Jemez in New Mexico. He performs with Native American Style flutes of his own making, and some made by others. He is also the Instructional Coordinator at the Jemez Historic Site where he educates the public about the Jemez People.

A large, jagged rock formation rises from a flat desert landscape under a purple and red star-filled night sky.

Symphonies in the Skies

By RoseMary Diaz Growing up in Santa Clara Pueblo, I listened to my grandmother tell the stories of our Tewa ancestors. From her I learned about how the Old Ones came from the north and built their homes in sandstone cliffs and atop high desert mesas of the Southwest; how they nurtured close relationships with the land and the animals and plants who also call it home; how they learned to read the weather and the seasons, hunt, and plant crops of beans, squash, and corn in a rainbow of sacred colors; how they shaped a rich legacy of language, song, and dance; and how they developed complex cosmocentric ceremonial and religious constructs that continue to define Tewa culture and belief today.