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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).
Dr. Jason "Jay" S. Shapiro is a retired archaeologist living in Santa Fe. In addition to several prior contributions to El Palacio, Dr. Shapiro is the author of Before Santa Fe, The Archaeology of the City Different (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2008), the first comprehensive synthesis of the Santa Fe region.
![A group of children and adults stand among trees in a cacao plantation, some looking at the camera, surrounded by leaves and cacao pods. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/01-1-400x225.jpg)
By Jason S. Shapiro The main benefit of this cacao is a beverage which they make called Chocolate, which is a strange thing valued in that country. It disgusts those who are not used to it, for it has foam on top or a scum-like bubbling.José de Acosta, 1590 Chocolate and I have a long history. One of my earliest childhood memories involves the aroma of fresh chocolate.
![Aerial view of an archaeological site on a hillside with excavated areas and surrounding desert landscape, mountains in the background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/scan10-1-400x225.jpg)
By Jason S. Shapiro In 1915, the world was consumed by a devastating world war—but it was also the year that a tall, thin, Danish archaeologist made his second trip to New Mexico in order to study the archaeology of the Galisteo Basin in the northern Rio Grande Valley. Nels Nelson, working for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, made numerous test excavations at several large pueblos, including a site just outside the city of Santa Fe: an archaeological gem called Arroyo Hondo.
![A glowing plasma is contained within a glass tube, surrounded by metal rings and scientific equipment in a dark laboratory setting. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/7large-400x225.jpg)
By Jason H. Shapiro If I could save time in a bottleThe first thing I'd like to do Is to save every day'Til eternity passes awayJust to spend them with you.Jim Croce The plasma laboratory at the Center for New Mexico Archaeology in Santa Fe is filled with the background hum of vacuum pumps. The gentle noise comes from an island of equipment: stainless steel piping and valves, glass chambers, wires and electrodes, gas cylinders, a radio frequency tuner, and some metal boxes with gauges, knobs, and switches.
