Mario Alberto Zambrano danced for Batsheva Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Nederlands Dans Theater, and Ballet Frankfurt between the years 1994 and 2005 before returning to school to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for an MFA in English, where he received the John C. Schupes Fellowship for Excellence in Fiction. Loteria, his first novel (Harper Collins, 2013), was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick for the fall of 2013 and a finalist for the 2014 John Gardner Fiction Book Award. It was hailed as a Best Book of 2013 by Booklist, The Village Voice, Vogue, and School Library Journal. Zambrano has been awarded literary fellowships to MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scotland’s Hawthornden Castle. Currently, he’s working on a new novel while serving as Program Director for Orsolina28’s Kylián Summer Program and as Associate Director of Dance at The Juilliard School in New York City.