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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).
James E. Snead (opens in a new tab) is a professor of anthropology at California State University, Northridge. A 1980 graduate of Santa Fe High School, he is an archaeologist and historian with diverse interests concerning the U.S. Southwest.
By James E. Snead Susan Elston Wallace was not impressed with Santa Fe. “It is the small boast of the citizens of this place that this is the oldest city in the U.S.,” she wrote a cousin in March 1879. But the town itself resembled “nothing so much as a collection of brick kilns.” The wife of Territorial Governor Lew Wallace, she had come West from Indiana under protest, bringing along the preconceptions of her time and class.
