Linda Holeman, who was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on December 24, 1949, the second of five children of Leon and Donna Freeman, dreamed of being a writer in England because she did not believe there were Canadian writers. She believed that a writer was someone magical who lived in a place like England.

Following high school, Holeman completed a bachelor of arts in sociology and psychology from the University of Winnipeg in 1972 and then took a one-year teacher certification program at the University of Manitoba. Married during the second year of her bachelor of arts degree, Holeman and her husband, Jon, "spent a year in Europe doing the '70's hippy-van thing, traveling around, stopping and working on farms" following her teacher education program.

After returning to Canada, the couple spent two years teaching at South Indian Lake in northern Manitoba for a couple of years...