I can't do a linear novel. I'm just going to write what I need to write.

I have to say my favorite stories are ghost stories. I don't like to see these made-up monster films or scary films with ghosts. It doesn't do anything to me. But a real ghost story that someone tells me, that I like.

I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school but because my mother took me to the library. I wanted to become a writer so I could see my name in the card catalog.

There are many Latino writers as talented as I am, but because we are published through small presses, our books don't count. We are still the illegal aliens of the literary world.

I learned from the Macarturos. I had never been at a table with a labor organizer and a playwright and a performance artist and an anthropologist and a human rights lawyer. Usually at most gatherings, it's all writers. But suddenly I was at a table with all these different people and I learned from each of them, learned from the work they're doing, learned new ways to solve my problems.

My Spanish is a daughter's Spanish. I write, but my Spanish really is very limited.

I do travel a lot, because I need oxygen, I need to go to places to meet people who aren't upset at me because I'm asking for peace.