About

My name is Hannah but my friends call me Hank. I’m a writer, director, actor and photographer. It took me a long time to stop being afraid of all those labels. To stop being afraid when someone asks me what I do, that the answer will stumble out like a clunky indecisive mess. We live in a culture that is constantly telling us to pick one thing, be the best at it and forget the rest. It’s true that some of us are built this way, but I wasn’t. 

What it all boils down to, all these things I love to do, is a simple love of storytelling. My strength as an artist lies in the ability to act as a sort of chameleon.  I can keep these different mediums in my back pocket and they don’t have to be disjointed or disconnected, because storytelling, in all its shapes, colors and sizes, like some kind of glimmering Frankenstein, is the medium itself. It’s what inspires, frightens and drives me the most. It’s what I was meant to do and it’s what I do best regardless of the outlet.

I was born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the only child of two oil painters. When I was 10, I fell in love with the performing arts and spent the next several years studying acting. I attended a semi conservatory high school as a drama major and later went to Hunter College for creative writing and film. Acting will always be my first love, a platform for expression that was naturally embraced and one that I often revisit. Writing on the other hand - in the form of essays, short stories and screenplays - was for years, something I simply did on my own time. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I decided to give up the ghost and begin to write in earnest, begin to call myself a writer.

Gradually the world behind the camera opened up further and for the past several years, I have worked in production in many different capacities  - script writing, copy writing, treatment writing/design and most recently, directing.

And when I’m not doing any of that, you might find me barefoot in the kitchen, dancing to records with my musician husband. I might be on a road trip in my grandmother’s old mini van or camping in the woods of Northern California. Often, I’m curled up on the couch reading books and watching black and white movies.