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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. Thomas E. Williamson (opens in a new tab) was a curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science for more than twenty-five years. He worked extensively on the fossil record preserved in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico.
![Person wearing outdoor gear and a backpack sits on a rocky slope, examining an object in their hands, under a partly cloudy sky in a barren landscape. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/mammals_2woTEXT-400x225.jpg)
by Thomas E. Williamson Walking alone over the uneven ground of the badlands of the San Juan Basin, David Baldwin tugged again at the bridle of his mule, leading it around a hoodoo—a tall pinnacle of banded rock. Baldwin could see his breath in the cold, crisp New Mexico winter air. It was 1879. Baldwin preferred to search for fossils in the winter.
