In this On the Fly interview—conducted in October 2010 when Horacio Castellanos Moya was in Iowa City to participate in programs sponsored by the University of Iowa International Writing Program—Castellanos explains his strategy for making sure he is full of ideas when he gets up in the morning to write: He keeps quiet at night. If he doesn’t, he explains, “The next morning I feel a little bit empty.”

That said, he attests to his adaptability as a writer. Speaking of his tendency to move from place to place, he says, “I am used to adapt(ing) myself to the conditions that I get. In different levels, that’s my understanding of life. I get what life gives me and I try to adapt to that.”

While he speaks of his nomadic life in this interview—born in Honduras, raised in El Salvador, and having spent time in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Germany, Japan, and the United States, he currently is an assistant professor in the University of Iowa’s Spanish & Portuguese program.