The legacy of the embargo will be Cuba's poverty and desperation. When the island comes out of it, they'll be even more desperate than they are now about the things they think they've missed. I think one of the unintended results of the embargo is that Cuba is quite consumerist - and I'm talking about the people, not the government or the official propaganda.

Offspring were a joy or a shame, but still the crown of their elders, nature's unpredictable creatures.

I tell people to have a relationship with their work every day, even if it means you just move a comma.

Interestingly, in Cuba abortion is treated as lightly as getting a mole removed.

So much depends on our health, and we tend to take it so for granted.

Each genre has its own process. I'm very intuitive about poetry. I usually write first and second drafts out by hand. The other end of the spectrum is journalism, which is much more cerebral, more thought-out and planned. Fiction lies somewhere in between. I usually start intuitively but eventually I need to stop and consider structure, or research, or both.

I feel possessive about stories I write in Spanish and so I usually end up translating those into English myself.