'These autobiographical essays by the American writer Lynn Freed will delight readers and writers alike … she inspires the writer with the truth of her own experiences — harrowing stories of failed drafts and false starts. Writing is a matter of talent and hard work.'

Dianne Dempsey (The Age)

'Marvelous. I’ve never read another book like this. Lively, funny, at once a vivid and moving memoir and a collection of uncommonly sensible observations about writing.'

Mark Childress, author of Crazy in Alabama

'Freed's voice is individual – funny, sharp, trenchant, and with a great intellectual and emotional range. She is especially witty and smart in this form. This is a wonderful collection.'

Diane Johnson

'Freed's best pieces serve as master classes in the art of getting it right. They make this collection something for every writer, published or aspiring, to befriend over a period of years, a generous source of heat, heart, energy and consolation … She's living proof that, contrary to the hackneyed adage, sometimes those who can do, teach.'

Jesse Berrett (The San Francisco Chronicle)

'One of the rarest gifts a novelist can possess is that of being able to present characters and situations that are unusual, even exotic or bizarre, and make them seem universal. This talent [is] stunningly displayed by Lynn Freed.'

(New York Times Book Review)

'Lynn Freed is a beautiful writer, dead-on brilliant, rich in humor, possessing a dark and comforting wisdom.'

Anne Lamott

'To the tiny list of necessary books for people who aspire to the writing life — Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor, and One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty — must now be added Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home… [Freed] writes with acuity and honesty about herself and her family; the recollections of her pleasingly eccentric mother and father are among the many attractions of this book. But mainly it is about writing, and it is one of the best books on that complex, elusive subject to come my way in a long time.'

Jonathan Yardley (The Washington Post)

'This memoir of her formation as a writer is characterized by such virtuosity and rigor that the reader is tempted time and again to linger, admiring the view, retracing the shape of a sentence … Impervious to defeat, Freed has produced this book, and the reader is grateful.'

Holly Brubach (The New York Times Book Review)

'Essays by a writer reflecting on her own creative processes and family history constitute a sort of interview of oneself, and novelist Lynn Freed's Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home: Life on the Page is distinguished by its emotional honesty and stylish prose. In discussing the potentially hurtful effects of her autobiographical fictions on her family and friends, and perhaps reaching toward the essence of writing fiction at all, Freed says there is no "safe and decent way" to do it. "If it is done right, someone will be hurt."

(Chicago Tribune)

'A wry, lively series of essays … on the parallel worlds of fiction and life, and the merciless task of shuttling between them.'

(The New York Times Book Review)

'Lynn Freed has to be one of the most honest writers I've come across. Unlike many of the writing books and memoirs crowding the shelves, Freed's is, at times, a bitter pill: you don't like the taste, but you know it's good for you. Honesty fuels this small book from start to finish … Freed is incredibly funny.'

(The Philadelphia Inquirer)

'Without rancour, Freed candidly explains how life interferes with writing (having to work as a teacher and as a travel agent, in part to help defray the costs of her annual trips to South Africa); of trying to please editors (who didn't want a sequel to her first book, Home Ground; she wrote one anyway); and of having a family.'

(Los Angeles Times Book Review)

'Splendid … Freed writes with humour and intensity.'

(The Seattle Times)

'Another superbly gifted writer is Lynn Freed, a native South African who has lived in the United States for many years and inhabits a psychological space somewhere between the two. Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home is chiefly about how she became a writer and, as such, is one of the best books on that subject I've ever read, but it also includes wry, loving recollections of her exceedingly eccentric parents and thoughtful reflections on what it is like to live in limbo.'

(The Washington Post Book World)

'The parts about leaving home are terrific. Freed's personal history, which she has mined before in fiction and nonfiction, is great material.'

(The Boston Globe)