Born in Australia, Van Hek lived in India (working in hospitals) and Belgium, studied painting in France, writing and performing there until the early 1970s when she returned to Australia. Her stage play 'Woman on the Stair' was first performed in 1987. Radio and tape readings from her collection The Slain Lamb confirm her belief that the written word comes to life when spoken. She is known primarily as one of the performance artists of 'DifficultWomen' (with Joe Dolce). The 'Difficult Women' performance piece has been described as a literary folk blues music cabaret which, over the years, has portrayed many "difficult" women ranging from Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield to Louisa Lawson (q.v.) and Camille Claudel. It has been performed overseas in Europe, Canada and New Zealand, in theatres, on radio and at venues such as the Edinburgh Book Festival.
Van Hek has acted in films (With Time to Kill, 1987), and with Joe Dolce, wrote and sang the song 'Intimacy' in the 1984 film The Terminator. Van Hek also recorded several CDs and was the lead singer with the 1980s electro-dance band 'Skin the Wig'. The Lilian character in Helen Garner's Monkey Grip is based on Van Hek (according to Wikipedia and other web sites). In 1994, she began designing and making garments in an entrepreneurial collaboration with women in North Vietnamese mountain villages under the label Lin Van Hek Design.
