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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).
Candace Walsh (opens in a new tab) is a former editor of El Palacio. Currently, she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Central Washington University. Walsh holds a PhD in creative writing from Ohio University and an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Candace has worked on staff at Condé Nast International, Mothering Magazine, and as the managing editor of New Mexico Magazine. Her writing has appeared in numerous national and local publications. Walsh is the author of Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity (Seal Press 2012), a 2013 New Mexico – Arizona Book Awards winner, and two of the essay anthologies she co-edited were Lambda Literary Award finalists: Dear John, I Love Jane and Greetings from Janeland.
![A person in a feathered headdress holds up a large snake labeled as a threat, with text protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/MIACEditoon081916-400x225.jpg)
BY CANDACE WALSH It’s an ancient question: what do you do with defeat? The question flows from ancient stakes: territory, sovereignty, self-determination, protection from harm. According to Buddhist principles, if you set an impossible goal and don’t achieve it, you will still succeed if you remain committed to it. (more…)
![A colorful living room with orange walls, wooden ceiling beams, eclectic furniture, patterned rugs, decorative plates, paintings, and various ornaments. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/ESP0133-400x225.png)
BY CANDACE WALSH Minimalism has enjoyed an unquestioned mandate for years. Clean out your closet! Banish clutter! Having a lot of stuff has acquired the whiff of the weird. The conversation’s false binary boils down to a spotless house with off-white everything, vs. Grey Gardens-y rooms stacked to the ceiling with old newspapers and cobwebby tea sets, plus herds of feral cats.
![An older man with a guitar sits on a bench outside as another person with headphones records him using a reel-to-reel recorder and a microphone. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Aural_JL-Enrique-Yara-400x225.png)
BY CANDACE WALSH Jack Loeffler’s feature, “The Practice of Aural History” describes his epic, lifelong project of recording “the myriad sounds recalling the half-century timespan of the spirit of place that pervades this region of the planet.” He decided that “oral history” was too linear to encompass his project’s ethos, and so he coined a new phrase. Loeffler’s recordings preserve music, spoken word, conversations, and the sounds of the desert at sunrise for posterity.
![Four beige-painted concrete stairs leading up to a small landing, with white walls on both sides. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Light_Stairs-P1040856-400x225.png)
BY CANDACE WALSH One of my least favorite jobs was working as a ghostwriter for a website’s figurehead. The part about being anonymous wasn’t so bad because I was churning out personally fulfilling writing on my own time. What bothered me was that my client had such a hard time letting go of the articles that much of the work we toiled over never saw the light of day.
![A rectangular, hand-painted white and red brick sits on a wooden surface. One side features a black swirl pattern and numbers are printed upside-down on the side facing up. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Made-in-Peru-for-Neiman-Marcus-400x225.png)
BY CANDACE WALSH History. When I was in high school in the eighties, it was called Social Studies. My teens learn history in a class called Individuals and Society. The concept of trying to dismantle history’s silos with new nomenclatures and perspectives is not a new one. But the need to do it continues. Last year at the Association of Writing Professionals conference, a panelist talked about a concept that stayed with me.
![Beaded artwork of two faceless figures, one with long brown hair and one with black braids, both wearing detailed blue and purple clothing, on a plain light background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Greeves_CheyenneMonaLisa-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
BY CANDACE WALSH When I asked Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge to contribute a poem to our Museum of Art commemorative ode fest, she politely demurred because of other commitments, but encouraged me to write a poem for the section. Although I did not think it quite appropriate to shoehorn my pensées into such elevated company, as I sat down to mull-pry my editor’s letter into existence, I found that it wanted to take the form of a poem.
![Two women sit on a fallen tree beside a pond, facing away from the camera in an outdoor, rural setting. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/EP_Arm-14-edited_Sepia-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
BY MARIE MARKESTEYN WITH CANDACE WALSH I truly believe that nobody ever really owns Los Luceros, but they might get their name on a piece of paper for a while. My own relationship with Los Luceros is a long and storied one, although I was never an owner. I am, however, a storyteller, and the stories are unending over there. I’m originally from Savannah, Georgia.
![Two older men; the first wears a gray shirt and holds a camera outdoors, the second wears a black shirt and holds a small bird sculpture against a gray background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_3158.cx_-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
MODERATED BY PETER BG SHOEMAKER & CONDENSED BY CANDACE WALSH Peter: The Be Here Now collaborations are using the counterculture movement in the United States as their centerpiece, their lodestone. Herb, your exhibition of photographs focuses on your experiences and your fellow soldiers in Vietnam. Michael, one of the many remarkable things about your art is your perspective as someone who lost his sight while a soldier in Vietnam.
![Hand-carved and painted wooden statue of a woman in a halo with rays, hands clasped in prayer, standing on a colorful pedestal with floral accents. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/4-TNM_NuestraSenoradelaLuzB-400x225.jpg)
BY CANDACE WALSH I loved field trips as a kid, but as a mother, I have to say that the permission slips alone fill me with guilt. I have a full-time job, and field trips inconveniently happen when I’m expected to be in my office. Once, a holiday from work gave me the leeway to accompany my daughter to the Genoveva Chavez Center with her grade.
![A textile artwork features abstract red, green, and pink geometric shapes with the text Rebecca James, 1950 woven into the center. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/The-View_5-400x225.jpg)
BY CANDACE WALSH Once upon a time, I was a child in the seventies with hippie parents. Want proof? If I had been a boy, they would have named me Sundance. During the first few years of my life, I was steeped in counterculture. (more…)
