Van Hek co-wrote and sang the song "Intimacy" for the soundtrack of the film The Terminator (1984).

[1] 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.

[2] 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.

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