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).

Stephen S. Post

Stephen S. Post (opens in a new tab) is is a former deputy director for the Office of Archaeological Studies, a division of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, where he worked from 1976–2011. He worked as a ceramic analyst and field technician for the School for Advanced Research (SAR) Contract Archeology Program in 1983–1984 and authored a study of the SAR campus in 2011. His experience encompasses 12,000 years of New Mexico’s rich past. Between 1994 and 2011, he directed advance archaeological excavations for Santa Fe’s public and private projects, including the New Mexico History Museum, the Santa Fe Community Convention Center, Santa Fe Railyard, and Las Campanas de Santa Fe, among others.

Six people stand above and look down into a pit, framed by wooden beams and a rope pulley system, under a clear sky. [gen-ai]

I Rebuilt the Palace of the Governors at My Own Expense

By Cordelia T. Snow and Stephen S. Post “I rebuilt the Palace of the Governors at my own expense.” Versions of those same words have been spoken by Spanish, Mexican, and American governors—and several museum directors—for more than 400 years. Several centuries of remodeling and maintenance culminated in the Palace’s transformation into the centerpiece of the nascent Museum of New Mexico in 1909.

Pindi Pueblo Comes Home To Roost

On December 4, 1933, excavation began on the first site to be listed in the official New Mexico archaeological site registry—Laboratory of Anthropology 1 (or LA 1). Stanley A. Stubbs and W. S. Stallings Jr. of the Laboratory of Anthropology directed the work of dozens of Santa Fe men over the next six months on the north bank of the Santa Fe River near Agua Fria Village.