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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).
Raven Skyriver (opens in a new tab) started blowing glass at the age of sixteen. His mentor, Lark Dalton, taught him how to build glass blowing equipment and trained him in the traditional Venetian technique. In 2003 Raven was invited to join the William Morris team. Skyriver lives near the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, and produces his work in the greater Seattle area. Raven shows his work nationally and has been featured in group shows internationally. His focus is sculpture, and the depiction of marine life is inspired by his island upbringing and informed by the creatures that inhabit this fragile ecosystem.
By Almah LaVon Rice Where does glass come from? From the Phoenicians, ancestors of the alphabet in modern-day Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. Or perhaps the Sumerians, inventors of the cuneiform, were the first fashioners of glass in what is now southern Iraq. It could have been the ancient Egyptians—creators of papyrus, whose daughter is paper. What seems more certain: Naturally occurring glass is the clear-eyed child of the meteorite.
