I write 1,000 words a day first thing in the morning but I cannot write 240 characters to describe a piece that I spent six weeks working on with a producer.

Radio, or at least the kind of radio we're proposing to do, can cut through that. It can reach people who would otherwise never hear your work, and of course I find that very notion inspiring. Radio stories are powerful because the human voice is powerful. It has been and will continue to be the most basic element of storytelling. As a novelist (and I should note that working my novel is the first thing I do in the morning and the very last thing I do before I sleep), shifting into this new medium is entirely logical. It's still narrative, only with different tools.

For fiction, Im not particularly nationalistic. Im not like the Hugo Chavez of Latin American letters, you know? I want people to read good work.

When I started writing seriously in high school, English was the language I had at my disposal - my Spanish was domestic, colloquial, and not particularly literary or sophisticated.

It's true that there are people who live the idea of being an artist, as opposed to the idea of making art.

I have a love/hate relationship with the internet. It's obviously the central tool of how I work, and how I keep in touch with all the writers and then producers that I'm collaborating with. Skype saves my life, you know.

I want people to read good work. If I see someone reading a book by Lorrie Moore or Jennifer Egan, I'm psyched. If I see them reading X Latin American Writer Who Sucks, I'm not psyched. But in terms of news, I do think that's important.