Lau was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to Chinese-Canadian parents, who intended for her to eventually become a doctor. Her parents' ambitions for her were wholly irreconcilable with her own; consequently, her home and school lives were desperately unhappy. In 1986 she ran away from her unbearable existence as a pariah in school and tyrannized daughter at home.

Evelyn Lau began publishing poetry at the age of 12; her creative efforts helped her escape the pressure of home and school. In 1985, at age 14, Lau left home and spent the next several years living itinerantly in Vancouver as a homeless person, sleeping mainly in shelters, friends' homes and on the street and often supporting herself by selling her body to much older men.

Despite the chaos of her first two years' independence she submitted a great deal of poetry to journals and received some recognition. A diary she kept at the time was published in 1989 as Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid. The book was a critical and commercial success. Topics and individuals discussed in the book include some of Lau's various relationships with manipulative older men, the life and habits of a group of anarchists with whom she stayed immediately after leaving home, Lau's experiences with a couple from Boston who smuggled her into the United States, her abuse of various drugs, and her relationship with British Columbia's child support services. The film The Diary of Evelyn Lau (1993) starred Korean-Canadian actress Sandra Oh.

Lau had a well-publicized romantic relationship with University of Victoria creative writing professor and author W. P. Kinsella which led to the filing of a libel case against her.She currently lives in Vancouver, where she freelances as a manuscript consultant in Simon Fraser University's Writing and Publishing Program. For invitations to poetry readings and festivals, the author may be contacted through Oolichan Books.

Memoirs

• Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid - 1989
• Inside Out: Reflection on a Life So Far - 2001

Poetry

• You Are Not Who You Claim - 1990 (winner of the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award)
• Oedipal Dreams - 1992 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
• In the House of Slaves - 1994
• Treble (Vancouver, BC: Raincoast Books, 2005)
• Living Under Plastic (Oolichan, 2010)

Short stories

• Fresh Girls and Other Stories - 1993
• Choose Me - 1999

Novels

• Other Women - 1995