Mariano Zaro moved to Los Angeles from Spain in the early 90s, and at that time, he was an emerging writer with very little experience in the literary world. He said, “Beyond Baroque, the Venice Literary Arts Centers played a crucial role in [his] development as a writer.” Additionally, he was involved in the Writer Program at UCLA. Zaro has published several books of poetry, such as Padre Tierra (published in Spain, Olifante) and Decoding Sparrows (What Books Press, Los Angeles). His main challenge as a writer was finding a community of writers. Zaro felt welcomed into the literary Los Angeles community from the very beginning. One of his areas of interest is translation, specifically within poetry. He has translated American poets Philomene Long (Poemas de las Misiones de California), Tony Barnstone (Buda en llamas), and Sholeh Wolpé (Cómo escribir una canción de amor). For the past ten years, he has collaborated with the literary project “Poetry.LA,” where he has conducted over 50 video interviews with prominent poets. Zaro’s short stories have appeared in Portland Review, Pinyon, Baltimore Review, Louisville Review, and Magnapoets. He won the 2004 Roanoke Review Short Fiction Prize and the 2018 Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Short Fiction Prize. He is a professor of Spanish at Rio Hondo Community College (Whittier, California).