I met Harvey Stanbrough on a hot afternoon in Agua Rocosa. He had just gotten off the bus from the north and was passing through town. He stopped in the cantina there—the one run by my friend, the storyteller Juan-Carlos Salazár—for a cold Negra Modelo. He listened with rapt attention as I and Juan-Carlos told stories of the magic that permeates our lives and mentioned to me that I should publish some of my stories. I haven't looked back.

That remains yet to be seen, but I mark success in writing the next sentence, then the next and the next until the story is finished. Then I mark success in writing the next tale.

Reminding the world that magic still exists just outside our mundane, workaday lives, at that point where reality folds into imagination.

Those who enjoy a good story mean everything to me. I invite them to cool themselves in the cantina.

The collection titled Stories from the Cantina is a series of five stories that stand alone but also are interconnected. After the fashion of Isabel Allende in her book The Stories of Eva Luna, I intend to write five more, then five more, and so on. And when all of them are written, I will combine them into a novel in which each individual story also will stand as a chapter. That in addition to writing separate stories of the kind found in my other collection, The Cycle of Ramón and Other Stories from the Cantina. Writing is great fun. Conveying the stories of my people is great fun. Why would I ever stop?

Chiefly, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Octavio Páz and Franz Kafka.

The chance to observe the magic that sparkles anew in each moment.

Listening to Juan-Carlos Salazár or reading.

I write into the dark. An idea occurs—a thought or a line or a name or an occurrence—and I just write it. I try to surprise myself with every sentence. When the ending occurs to me, I just want to finish so I can begin the next story.

Harvey Stanbrough knows me and my stories very well. He personally designs all my covers for both ebooks and print.

Other magic realism books and stories and anything by Hemingway or by my friend Paco. (Ed. note: For some reason, we aren't sure why, Gervasio refers to Nicolas Z Porter as Paco.)

I read on Kindle. It's very convenient for reading in full light. Mi esposa reads on her tablet.

To market my work, I just write the next story or the next collection. The cover and the 'hook' sell the current story. The ending of the current story sells the next one. I don't spend a lot of time doing anything I don't enjoy.