Sandra Cisneros in The Paris Review:
How does a woman writer make her own money? How does she find the time to write? As a young woman, I scoured every book-jacket biography trying to decipher this secret. My mother, a Depression baby, gave me sound advice: “Make sure you earn your own money. Especially if you’re married, do you hear me?” I did indeed. Once you’ve been poor, you’re forever hounded by the fear you’ll be poor again.
Jane Austen lived in a time when ladies of her genteel class had few options to acquire wealth, much less manage it themselves. If lucky, she might inherit a legacy like her brother Edward, adopted by wealthy cousins seeking an heir. She could marry money, possibly. Or she might seek a position in a prosperous household as a governess. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, published a generation later, would document why the governess route was unthinkable.
More here.
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