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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).
Paul Weideman has written about archaeology, historic preservation, architecture, real estate, art, and culture for The Santa Fe New Mexican and other publications for thirty years. He is the author of the 2019 book ARCHITECTURE Santa Fe: A Guidebook.
By Paul Weideman Santa Fe’s history lives in its buildings— in the places where people lived, worked, played, studied and worshipped during the past several centuries. Many of the buildings are wonderful in themselves; as examples of adobe construction, for instance. And in both the buildings and their people, we realize the importance of historic preservation. One esteemed survivor is the Otero-Bergere House on Grant Avenue.
![Two people relax in a small, concrete hot spring pool surrounded by rocks and greenery. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/6-1-3-400x225.jpg)
By Paul Weideman "It’s easy in New Mexico to wind down while things heat up,” according to a New Mexico Tourism Department guide to New Mexico’s hot springs at newmexico.org. However, residents’ ability to enjoy our steamy mineral springs is not what it historically was. Part of the problem dates to the U.S. takeover of New Mexico Territory in 1848. More and more people came from the East trying to seek respite from tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, and entrepreneurs took advantage of opportunities to transform increasingly popular hot springs into businesses.
By Paul Weideman Messing with the matrix. That’s one of the problems with the modern-day fad of stacking stones into cairns in wilderness areas. Cairns are an age-old method of marking trails, but those that are constructed for less serious reasons at archaeological sites can cause irreparable damage. “If there were associated grid gardens or shallow subsurface deposits, the rock removal would likely disturb them, compromising the shallow subsurface stratigraphy,” says Jessica Badner.
