About - Hana Walker Brown

How I started?
It’s a great story

“A lot of gold
would trade
hands amongst
engineers.”

Fucking legend.

My Dad can tell it better than I can but since you’re on my page, I better give you the run down.

I started my career in sound storytelling when I was 4 years old. Seriously. I didn’t know this story until a couple of years ago when I was making a documentary with my Dad for BBC Radio 4. (In hindsight, I think it’s perhaps because it took my Dad this long to forgive me.) He had been working as a studio engineer in London and as a result, had some pretty rare recordings in his possession.

“A lot of gold would trade hands amongst engineers” he said.

One of these treasures was a rare recording of a very young musician called Jimi Hendrix harmonising with crooner Engelbert Humperdinck.

It was tucked away with thousands of cassettes in the house, but, of course, mini me managed to find this very tape… and the tape recorder.

My dad came home one day to find my podgy little finger on the red record button, talking into the machine, telling no one and everyone stories about myself and thus erasing the Hendrix/Humperdink collab forever.

Fucking legend.

I am driven
as much
by rage
as I am
by hope.

So this urge, this burning desire I have to put something out into the world and to tell stories has always been there.

Fast forward three decades and I’m a multi-award-winning creative working across narrative podcasts, documentary film and narrative non-fiction. I also compose music for stage, screen and virtual reality, consult on storytelling and host live events, talks and masterclasses.

I have a number of awards under my belt, being honoured internationally by the British Podcast Awards, Audio Production Awards, Amnesty International, the prestigious Peabody Awards and a Rose D’Or. I have made work for and collaborated with Amazon, Audible, The BBC, The Guardian, National Geographic, Pottermore, Sony Music, Ventureland, Wilderness Festival and Warner Brothers to name a few.

Which basically means I still tell stories; just really good stories.

In fact, I’ve spent my career travelling the world, telling true stories in all forms. Sitting down with strangers until we’re no longer strangers, creating and holding a safe space for someone into which they can just talk; freely, openly while I listen. I have sat with their fear, their silence, with their joy, grief, courage and everything in between.

Lead by curiosity, my work strikes a balance between investigative and intimate, taking the big world stuff and making it human and including everyone in the conversation.

I am passionate about exploring the edges of vulnerability and courage, in authenticity, and in the art of holding space. As an agent of change, underpinning all of my work, across all mediums, is the drive to tell stories that empower.

I am represented as an Author by Matilda Forbes-Watson at WME.

The images on this page were taken by Liz Seabrook