Farrell, who was born in Oamaru, returned to her old home town for a creative writing workshop on Saturday, at the invitation of the Janet Frame Eden Street Trust.
On Friday night, she discussed writing and the Oamaru influence at a literary hour in the Oamaru Public Library.
That was appropriate given she regularly frequented the library in Oamaru as a child. Her father, himself a "copious" reader, signed her up as a subscriber at a young age.
While writers began books in all sorts of ways - some with a character or some with a story they wanted to tell - what always started Farrell was place.
Several of her books had begun in Oamaru or with a little place that was very like the town. Oamaru was not just a place that she wrote about and not just a setting, it was also the place that "made" her, she said.
Born in Oamaru Public Hospital, she was brought up in a house in Greta St. She recalled a wonderful education in English at Waitaki Girls High School.
She now lives at Otanerito, a remote bay on Banks Peninsula, but Oamaru remained a "very vivid" place for her, she said.
The Janet Frame Eden Street Trust has received funding to open Janet Frame's old home in Eden St during the duration of the Rugby World Cup.
Chairwoman Carol Berry said the trust was looking forward to welcoming tourists in October, as they sought to "engage with the real New Zealand".
