El Palacio Magazine

07/02/2024

For the summer issue Adele Oliveira wrote about the history and legacy of Santa Fe’s acequias and the vital cultural, historical, and environmental reasons for preserving the four acequias that remain.

06/27/2024

Whether you have ever wondered if there’s other sentient life in the universe or whether you are intrigued by seemingly-prophetic science fiction writers, or you are curious about the Roswell incident, this episode of Encounter Culture has it all! Join Ness Brown, astrophysicist and speculative fiction author; Chris Orwoll, executive director of New Mexico Museum of Space History; and host Emily Withnall to hear a fascinating conversation about the many ways science fiction influences science and vice versa. Listen to Encounter Culture on our website (link in comments) or on any podcast listening app.

06/24/2024

Wonderful reading featuring work from three different excerpts in the summer issue of El Palacio. Huge thanks to Garcia Street Books for hosting us and to Samantha Dunn, Jason Asenap, and New Mexico Museum of Art’s Christian Waguespack for their words and expertise.

06/21/2024

It’s Pride month and one of the summer issue features offers a deep-dive on the exhibition “Out West: Gay and Le***an Artists in the Southwest from 1900-1969” on view at New Mexico Museum of Art until September 2. Curator Christian Waguespack will also be speaking and answering questions about the exhibition at the El Palacio summer issue reading happing this Sunday, June 23, at 4 pm at Garcia Street Books . He will be joined by writers Samantha Dunn and Jason Asenap who will be reading from their work in the summer issue—an essay about 1980s Las Vegas and a profile of an Indigenous multimedia artist, respectively. Please join us!

06/12/2024

Whether you have family members or friends whose lives have been affected by incarceration, the upcoming exhibition, “Between the Lines: Prison Art & Advocacy” at the Museum of International Folk Art, offers a window into the artistic expression and humanity of incarcerated individuals across the U.S. and internationally. The Museum of International Folk Art is dedicated to collaborating with community members and this exhibition is no exception. Listen to the recent episode of Encounter Culture to hear from the exhibition’s curators about their collaboration with previously incarcerated artists and other community members. And be sure to check out their website for upcoming events prior to the exhibition opening on August 9. Link to episode in the comments!

06/06/2024

It’s here! Subscribers should be receiving the summer issue any day now. Here’s the fabulous cover of the Late We:wa from Zuni Pueblo, and a preview of an essay about a 1980s Las Vegas, NM, prom written by Samantha Dunn and paired with photos by Alex Traube.

Also in this issue: an essay by Joe Saenz (Chiricahua Apache) reflecting the Gila Wilderness’s 100th anniversary as it pertains to his ancestral homeland, a profile of multimedia Diné artist Dylan McLaughlin, a deep dive on gay and le***an artists in NM from 1900-1969, the fight to preserve the environmental and cultural benefits of Santa Fe’s remaining acequias, and the legacy of trauma that has rippled through time as the result of Santa Fe’s Japanese Internment camp—and the efforts to remember.

If you aren’t a subscriber yet, it’s not too late! I will personally mail you a copy of the summer issue if any/all of this piques your interest. Subscribe at elpalacio.org/subscribe.

Museum of International Folk Art
New Mexico Historic Sites
New Mexico Museum of Art
New Mexico Arts

06/03/2024

Episode 4 of the podcast dropped with an interview with Laura Gonzales and Berdina Nieto about the statewide reach of New Mexico State Library through its two incredible rural library services: Books by Mail and three bookmobiles that serve different regions of the state.

Listen now at the link below or wherever you catch your favorite podcasts:
https://podcast.nmculture.org/2024/05/27/bookmobiles-and-books-by-mail/

05/21/2024

While you wait for the summer issue to arrive, check out the essay from the spring issue about Chicano art, written by none other than Jimmy Santiago Baca. The essay is an ode to survival, imagination, and the things that make us human. Link in comments.

National Hispanic Cultural Center
Museum of International Folk Art

05/17/2024

It’s Friday and the summer issue is off to the printer so I thought I’d share a sneak preview of the cover featuring the Late We:wa of Zuni Pueblo. If you haven't subscribed yet, I recommend you do! Link to subscription page in comments.

05/15/2024

Identity and belonging can often be tricky to pin down. And when there are layers of colonization involved, identity can be even harder to define, or more nuanced.

If you grew up in New Mexico and never learned Genízaro history, you are not alone. On this episode of Encounter Culture, Dr. Gregorio Gonzales (Comanche and Genízaro), tribal liaison for New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, shares his knowledge on Genízaro history and culture in New Mexico. His insights are both culturally specific but also relevant to us all: who do you claim and who claims you?

Listen through the link in the comments or on any podcast listening app!

05/13/2024

Have you yet read Leeanna Torres's gorgeous essay in the spring issue of El Palacio, “Tinieblas: A Holy Thursday with New Mexico Penitentes”? If not, trust me when I say you will be truly transported. An excerpt:

“Light wanes inside. I can hardly see Papa’s shadow next to me now. Resos y mas resos. Between breath and word, I imagine the Hermanos praying for the suffering of the whole world. Some of us seated repeat the prayers in cadence with the Hermanos, but others are silent, the sacredness of adobe walls already settled into their bones.“

05/08/2024

An afternoon visit to the Coronado Historic Site at Kuaua Pueblo. Beautiful spot on a sunny spring day! And lots of questions about what and how we preserve, who preserves, and how histories are interpreted. Like most things, it’s layered and complex.

05/07/2024

Quick road trip to see a couple more state museums and historic sites. Today, the in Las Cruces! It’s a big, beautiful space with a lot of interesting histories about farming in and around New Mexico, complete with cows and sheep on site.

05/01/2024

Did you know many of New Mexico’s tribal libraries function as community archives? Or that libraries offer programming for kids and teens year round? Listen in to our conversation about the plethora of resources New Mexico State Library uses to support libraries around the state. Link in comments or podcast available on any podcast listening app.

04/30/2024

A few photos of the fabulous contributors to the spring issue of El Palacio who participated in Friday’s readings and Q&A. Audience members were very engaged and asked interesting and compelling questions. Looking forward to our summer reading on Sunday, June 23 at 4 pm at Garcia Street Books. Save the date!

04/23/2024

Who doesn’t like a good 1980s photo collage? Or a story about a community of people hidden in plain sight? Or a feel-good history of le***ans in Albuquerque, NM? Read all about the filmmaker of the documentary, The Whistle, by writer Lazarus Letcher in the spring issue of El Palacio. And better yet, join us this coming Friday, April 26, at 4:30 pm at the main library in downtown Santa Fe for a reading by Lazarus and fellow spring issue contributors, Leeanna Torres and Darryl Lorenzo Wellington . And if you missed the screening of The Whistle at the New Mexico History Museum last summer, find it for free on New Mexico PBS.

04/18/2024

In honor of National Poetry Month, the first episode of season six of Encounter Culture features a conversation with New Mexico State Poet Laureate, Lauren Camp. Whether you love poetry, have no opinion, or dislike it, I think this episode could surprise you! Lauren is traveling the state to create community poems all over New Mexico, so if she hasn't visited your town yet, we have all kinds of updates and resources listed in the podcast show notes and transcript. Listen in the link in the comments or in any podcast app.

New Mexico State Library. New Mexico Arts

04/15/2024

Please join us for an El Palacio reading! Reading and Q&A Friday, April 26, 2024, at 4:30 pm at the Santa Fe Public Library, Main--145 Washington Ave.

The reading panel and Q&A include three contributors to the spring 2024 issue of El Palacio magazine. Featured readings include:

Jean Toomer's Search for Identity by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, which recounts the complex historical and personal contexts--including his experiences in Taos--that lead Jean Toomer to reject traditional ideas of race.

Tinieblas by Leeanna Torres: An essay about her profound experience during a Penitente serve in her home community of Tomé, NM.

The Sound of Community by Lazarus Letcher: An article about New Mexican filmmaker StormMiguel Florez's documentary, The Whistle, which recounts le***an life in Albuquerque in the 1980s.

Following the readings, editor of El Palacio, Emily Withnall, will facilitate a Q&A. Light refreshments will be served.

About the Writers:

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington was the sixth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe. His poems and essays on African American history and writers, and poverty and racism have appeared in many publications including the anthology Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World's Richest Country. His most recent collection is Legible Walls: Poems for Santa Fe Murals.

Leeanna T. Torres is a Nuevomexicana with deep Indo-Hispanic roots. Her essays have appeared in High Country News, Blue Mesa Review, and High Desert Journal, among other publications. Leeanna's essays also appear in the anthologies First & Wildest: The Gila Wilderness at 100, and Elementals: An Elemental Life, Vol. 5.

Lazarus Letcher (they/them) is a Ph.D candidate in American studies at UNM. They have written for Autostraddle, them, and dry academic journals. They play viola for Eileen and the In-Betweens and for art installation performances with Stages of Tectonic Blackness.

04/04/2024

The spring issue of El Palacio, out now, features writing by Annie Wenstrup about the traveling exhibition from Bunnell Street Arts Center currently on view at Museum of International Folk Art for just a few more days. But even if you are not in New Mexico, Annie’s article about the Native Alaskan artists’ work, which grapples with grief and community in the face of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples epidemic, is a beautiful tribute to the artistry and care in these collaborative works of art.

03/18/2024

Recent Santa Fe Poet Laureate, Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, wrote about Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer in the spring issue of El Palacio. Notable for his groundbreaking book “Cane,” Toomer also had very new and fascinating ideas—partially inspired by his time in Taos. An excerpt from the profile:

“With wit and insight, [Langston] Hughes summarized the beginning of the great divide in Jean Toomer studies, reflecting the divergent lives of the man. The publication of Cane was both an end and a new beginning. Who was the soulful poet behind Cane, cited as a major influence by countless Black writers, including Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, vis-á-vis the man who refused to have work republished in an Afrocentric anthology? Who was Jean Toomer up to 1923, vis-á-vis the mystic sojourner who came afterward? His disparate career is like a house with two doors. It confounds some readers, depending on which door they enter.”

03/13/2024

Look Long

Throughout the eight years I lived in Montana, I wrote essays that were essentially love letters to New Mexico. If you had asked me in high school if I wanted to stay, my answer would have been a resounding “No.” But I was born near the red willows on the banks of the Rio Grande and raised in the seam between the Great Plains and the foothills of Hermit’s Peak. The red earth and unrelenting sun are a part of me.

Still, my family does not go back generations on this land. I wrestle with my sense of belonging in my love letters to New Mexico. This wrestling is not unique; no matter their birthplace or ancestral history, many people wrestle with belonging or identity. The pandemic heightened questions of purpose and prompted us all to examine the communities we did and didn’t belong to. In isolation in those early days, we remembered, yearned, and dreamed. My yearning brought me back home.

“Blood is thicker than water” is a phrase meant to emphasize the strength of familial bonds. But the correct phrase, with origins that are murky but perhaps attributable to the Bible, is “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” Which is to say, community and belonging are often forged through shared meaning and experiences rather than shared genetics. For those of us in the LGBTQIA+ community, this has always been understood. As Lazarus Letcher writes in their profile of filmmaker StormMiguel Florez, the focus on joy and community—rather than pain and discrimination—is a worthy one.

Belonging rings through the pages of this issue of El Palacio. In her article, Annie Wenstrup talks with three artists whose work grapples with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People epidemic. Though the artists and the communities they belong to are bound, in part, by disproportionate trauma and loss, their art is a testament to the power of community and collaboration. Through their work, the artists convey an unwavering insistence on the presence and vitality of Indigenous communities. It is a declaration, a prayer, a song: “We are here.”

This insistence for visibility and shared humanity reverberates through Jimmy Santiago Baca’s ode to prison art and the Pinto plebe who create it. He writes with heart and from experience as he pays tribute to the Chicano artists who continue to assert their dignity despite their constructed invisibility and the indignities they face. Like the artists Wenstrup interviews, the art conveys emotion and connection that surpass language.

Even in small New Mexican communities, the church you do or don’t attend communicates one kind of belonging. Penitente services are often held in private, family-owned capillas—but Leeanna Torres’s recounting of her experience at a Penitente service in Tomé last year invites readers into the Sánchez capilla so that we, too, can feel the power of ceremony and community within the chapel’s adobe walls.

Exclusion is often the flip side of belonging. For me, as I wrestle on the page with my own maps of belonging, it can sometimes be easier to see where I don’t belong. Was this also true for Harlem Renaissance writer, and former Taos resident, Jean Toomer? In his analysis of Toomer’s writing and legacy, Darryl Lorenzo Wellington makes one thing clear: we are, all of us, caught in the middle of our ideals and our lived realities. How do we square individual and communal belonging within our historical and contemporary contexts? Like anything worth doing, perhaps the seeking is itself the point.

—Emily Withnall, editor

Have you received a copy of the spring issue yet? If not, subscribe at www.elpalacio.org/subscribe.

I’d love to hear what you think of the issue! Feel free to comment here or email me. I welcome pitches, too!

***photo from Museum Hill this morning.

03/08/2024

Do you love poetry, art, and all things New Mexico? If so, we have exciting news: New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs has launched a statewide ekphrastic poetry contest dedicated to finding written inspiration in pieces of artwork on view around the state!

In preparation for National Poetry Month in April, NMDCA divisions across New Mexico have selected 10 works of art that showcase the best of their collections. Through the end of March, New Mexicans will have the chance to write and submit ekphrastic poetry that responds to any of these 10 selected artworks.

Visit nmculture.org/poetry to learn more and get inspired today!

(Image: Marla Allison (Paguate Village, Laguna Pueblo), Water Girls, 2017, museum purchase 60220/13. Museum of Indian Arts and Culture)

02/29/2024

The spring issue has arrived! If you are a subscriber, it is winging its way to your mailbox. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to share your thoughts or ideas for future issues.

02/29/2024

Final southern NM road trip visit to Fort Selden. Finally a non-windy day! It’s been heartening to hear plans for deeper and more historically accurate interpretation at the various historic sites. The wealth of knowledge held by New Mexico Historic Sites staff is truly impressive. To learn more about Fort Selden and to ponder the real questions about what we preserve and why, read Kate Nelson’s excellent article, published in the winter issue and linked in the comments.

02/28/2024

A full day in the brisk wind at Fort Stanton and Lincoln Historic Sites today. Site manager Oliver Horn is a walking history book and the layers of history at Fort Stanton, from its role in the Civil War, as an internment camp for N**i sympathizers, the connections the fort had with the Mescalero Apache, the presence of Buffalo Soldiers, its use as a sanatorium, a women’s low-security prison, are fascinating. The spring issue of El Palacio (on its way to mailboxes early next week) features an interview with Oliver that provides insight into some of the site’s previously untold histories. New Mexico Historic Sites

02/26/2024

Confessions of a Northern New Mexican editor: Being from Las Vegas, I grew up with little experience of the southern parts of our state. So I’m on the road in southern NM this week! First stop, the in Alamogordo. Stay tuned for a podcast episode coming up in season 6 in which we’ll be discussing how science fiction influences science and vice versa. And in the meantime, I highly recommend an Alamogordo road trip to check out the many fascinating exhibitions at the museum. And maybe a stop at White Sands (if it’s not as windy as it is today!) and a stop for some red chile pistachios.

02/23/2024

Sneak preview of the spring 2024 cover! The image is a close-up of the enormous "Memorial Qaspeq" on view at the Museum of International Folk Art as a part of the traveling exhibition from Alaska, "Protection: Adaptation & Resistance." The feature story, written by writer Annie Wenstrup (Dena'ina), is a testament to the power of community and love in the face of the grief of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis. This issue will be out March 1.

02/07/2024

Happy to share the last episode of season 5 of Encounter Culture. It’s a moving, powerful conversation with Bobby Brower (Iñupiaq) and Tara Trudell (Santee/Sioux/Rarámuri/Mexican/Spanish) about making art in community in response to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis. The conversation covers fashion, adornment, protection, AMBER Alerts, and so much more. Please listen--and stay tuned for the next season of Encounter Culture, coming at the end of March! Link in comments or on any podcast app!

Museum of International Folk Art

02/02/2024

The spring issue is approximately one month from being in your hands! I can't give you a sneak preview of the issue quite yet, but I can tell you what's inside.

Jimmy Santiago Baca writes an ode to Chicano prison art in the spring issue; Santa Fe Poet Laureate Darryl Lorenzo Wellington writes about Harlem Renaissance writer, Jean Toomer, who lived in Taos in the 1930s; Annie Wenstrup writes about the art at the Museum of International Folk Art that engages with the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People epidemic; Lazarus Letcher profiles StormMiguel Florez's documentary, The Whistle, about le***an culture in 1980s Albuquerque; essayist Leeanna Torres reflects on an experience she had at a Penitente service last year; and Oliver Stone and C. L. Kieffer engage in a conversation about Fort Stanton's lesser known histories--including the ripple effect the fort's presence had on the defeat of Confederate soldiers by the Ndé (Mescalero Apache).

These brief snippets do not do full justice to the gorgeous writing and intriguing range of topics each of these articles contains. Are you a subscriber? If not, and if you're like me and appreciate the weight of a magazine in your hands and the vibrancy of art and photographs in print, head to

Receive El Palacio as a benefit of membership in the Museum of New Mexico Foundation. Join now. Subscribe (or Renew your subscription) to El Palacio OnlinePurchase or renew subscriptions to El Palacio. Call505-660-5942 [email protected] MailEl Palacio Subscriptions725 Camino LejoSanta Fe, NM...