Lin Van Hek
# Lin Van Hek

Lin Van Hek (aka Lyn van Hecke, born Lyn Whitehead) is an Australian writer, singer, painter, designer and artist. She was a vice-president of the Society of Women Writers and co-founder of the literary-music group Difficult Women.

## Early life

Van Hek was born in Melbourne and lived in Europe and India while she was growing up.

## Career

Van Hek co-wrote and sang the song "Intimacy" for the film, The Terminator. She later recorded a solo CD River of Life featuring songs of New Zealand writer, Kath Tait. More recently, she has performed with her partner, Joe Dolce in Difficult Women, that began with a series of feminist literary salons van Hek held in the 1980s.

She also worked for over two decades with a group of women in North Vietnam designing, manufacturing and trading in hand-embroidered silk garments and textiles with a focus on fair trade and worker ethics.

She is a prolific painter and writer. She is described by Booker Prize-winning author Keri Hulme as writing "like an angel giving the devil her due."

## Awards

* 1988 winner of the Melbourne The Age Short Story Award
* 2015 Best Australian Poems, edited by Geoff Page.
* 2016 & 2017 winner of the Society of Women Writers short story contest.
