At the age of six, Evelyn Lau already knew what she wanted from life—to be a writer.

Frustrated and discouraged by her parents, who forbade her to “waste” valuable study time writing, Evelyn ran away at the age of fourteen. Seduced by the freedom and independence that life on the streets of Vancouver seemed to offer, she was soon trapped in a downward spiral of drug addiction and prostitution. During her two harrowing years on the street, Lau’s writing ambition never left her; almost obsessively, she kept a written record of her days on the street. This record is Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid.

Tragic, sometimes infuriating, but always honest and inspired, Runaway makes no apologies, passes no judgments, and offers no trite moral-of-the-story solutions. The result is a raw and vivid portrait of the life of a street kid.

PRAISE FOR RUNAWAY: DIARY OF A STREET KID

“…perhaps the most powerful and searing portrayal of street life in this country ever to emerge.”  — WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

“…a compelling and unsettling journey into the mind of a teenage girl.”  — THE GLOBE AND MAIL

“n the world of elements, Lau is fire…In her writing the heat is unrelenting.”  — THE VANCOUVER SUN

“Lau is a writer of tremendous power. Runaway tells a gripping story, and its revelations about the workings of an adolescent’s mind are much more illuminating than a whole shelf of how-to-parent books.”  — BOOKS IN CANADA