Lin Van Hek

Lyn Whitehead (born 4 October 1944), known professionally as Lin Van Hek Lyn van Hecke, 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 soundtrack of the film The Terminator (1984). 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.

Van Hek 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.

Van Hek 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."