Mario Alberto Zambrano

Mario Alberto Zambrano, who was born in Houston, danced for Batsheva Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Nederlands Dans Theater II, and Ballet Frankfurt between 1994 and 2005. He then returned to school and earned an MFA in English at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received a John C. Schupes fellowship for excellence in fiction. His first novel, Lotería (Harper Collins), was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick in 2013 and a finalist for the 2014 John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Zambrano, who was awarded the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction for his short story “Some of You,” has been a YoungArts Presidential Scholar in the Arts and a Princess Grace Award winner. He has been awarded literary fellowships to MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scotland’s Hawthornden Castle. Before joining Juilliard, he was a lecturer in theater, dance, and media at Harvard. He serves as program director for Orsolina28’s summer program and is the associate director of Juilliard Dance.