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.

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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.

A woman with long dark hair wearing a coral shirt sits outdoors, resting her chin on her hand, with greenery and flowers in the background.

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.

A woman with straight brown hair wearing a dark turtleneck and long, beaded earrings poses against a plain white background.

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).

A man with long hair pulled back, wearing a patterned shirt and turquoise beaded necklace, stands outdoors with trees and the sun setting in the background.

Daniel Vandever (Irish/Navajo)

Daniel Vandever (Irish/Navajo) (opens in a new tab) is an award-winning author and entrepreneur from Haystack, New Mexico. He is the CEO of South of Sunrise Creative, a publishing and consulting firm that helps advance education initiatives in tribal communities.

Vandever is the author of Fall in Line, Holden!, a 2018 Honor Book for the American Indian Youth Literature Award (AIYLA), and Herizon, AIYLA’s Best Picture Book of 2022. His most recent book, We Weave, was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Books of 2024 and received AIYLA honor recognition in 2026. Scholastic published an early reader by Vandever in 2024, Behind Every Rug, as part of its Own Voices – School and Friends collection.

Weaving Navajo culture into the contemporary experience is at the heart of Vandever’s books, which he shares with schools across the nation. Vandever has worked with eight tribal nations to promote literacy spanning from the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community in Arizona to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina.

Vandever received an undergraduate degree in Strategic Communications from the University of Missouri and a master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of New Mexico. Vandever is the grandson of Joe Vandever, Sr., Navajo Code Talker, U.S. Marine Corps

A promotional graphic for an event featuring Navajo picture book author Daniel Vandever, hosted by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. [gen-ai]

#56 Uplifting Cultural Knowledge with Navajo Picture Book Author Daniel Vandever

What does it mean to tell a story that your community has never seen reflected back at them? In this episode of Encounter Culture, host Emily Withnall sits down with Navajo children’s book author Daniel Vandever, whose picture books Fall in Line, Holden! and Herizon weave imagination and joy together with the weight of boarding school history and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis. Daniel shares how a career in higher education, and a stubborn love of rhyme, led him to write the books he wished had existed growing up, why he chose to let one book speak entirely without words, and how he’s already dreaming up a story you can 3D-print as you read it. It’s a conversation about creativity, representation, healing, and the quiet power of a bedtime story.