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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).
Jason Strykowski (opens in a new tab) is a writer and historian who has worked on more than a dozen major film and television sets as a script coordinator and an assistant to producers and actors. He also spent years as a tour guide in Northern New Mexico. His articles have appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Edible New Mexico, Santa Fean, wired.com, Comic Book Resources, and New Mexico Magazine. He is the author of A Guide to New Mexico Film Locations: From Billy the Kid to Breaking Bad and Beyond.
![Two cowboys aiming guns at each other, one standing by a door and the other peering through a window in a stone building. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2-9-400x225.jpg)
By Jason Strykowski Long before he painted an official presidential portrait, Peter Hurd portrayed a notorious perpetrator. The Roswell-born artist was the first actor to take the title role in the inaugural Last Escape of Billy the Kid pageant staged in 1940. The event was held on the very spot where the actual Billy the Kid engineered his getaway fifty-nine years earlier.
