This month at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I interview Lea Aschkenas, whose book Es Cuba : Life and Love on an Illegal Island will be released this month by Seal Press.

As with many travel writers I’ve interviewed over the years, Aschkenas points to finances as a big challenge of the freelance writing life. “I don’t know many writers who earn their living from writing,” she says, “so really the writing life is a series of compromises. I live very frugally, and I also feel like I’m constantly reinventing myself, constantly asking myself the question, What other job can I do that won’t consume all my free time and that won’t make me so miserable that I’ll be too tired to write in the evenings and on the weekends? I don’t mean to sound too pessimistic, but really I feel that being a writer, unless/before you hit it big, is a process of lowering your expectations of financial reward. Also…it’s about the realization that the job I ultimately spend most of my time doing, the one whose earnings I record on my taxes, will not be my life’s calling but rather a (financial) means to the end of getting to do my writing.”

For Aschkenas, this has meant working at a variety of day jobs. “I teach poetry,” she says. “I teach Spanish. I work at a public library. I’ve worked at a bookstore. I’ve worked as a reporter and a caption writer, both of which are definitely writing jobs, but they weren’t the type of writing I think about when I think of being a travel writer. At some point, though, I decided that if I couldn’t do the type of writing I liked for my main job, I’d rather not do a writing job, not taint this career I so love, and do my writing, creative writing, on the side.”

Full Lea Aschkenas interview online here.