Creator and former showrunner of Bones Hart Hanson attends Wordfest
By Emma Swanson, August 15 2024—
Hart Hanson, the creator and former showrunner of the renowned American television series Bones, will be talking about all things books for Calgary’s literary non-for-profit organization, Wordfest, on Aug. 15th and 16th.
“I think Wordfest is just fantastic, and if you want to be a writer, I think going to [literary festivals] is very inspiring,” Hanson told the Gauntlet.
Hanson will interview Kathy Reichs, a forensic anthropologist, crime writer and former producer for Bones, on the 15th. Importantly, Hanson based Bones on Reichs and her work.
“She’s a monstrously successful book writer,” Hanson said, explaining how he is greatly looking forward to the festival and the mini-reunion with Reichs.
On Aug. 16th, Hanson’s appearance will be a solo conversation for his new novel The Seminarian, published last May. The Seminarian, according to the Wordfest website, is a “twisty murder mystery.” The novel focuses on Xavier ‘Priest’ Priestley, a private investigator who previously belonged to a seminary but experienced a loss of faith.
“I’ve been writing mostly crime for 20 years, so it’s my wheelhouse,” Hanson said.
Regarding Priest’s loss of faith, Hanson said he’s a lapsed Catholic himself, so he was interested in figuring out what happens to someone who is more Catholic, as an adult, when they lapse.
On whether Hanson identifies with any of the characters in the novel, he said that as an author, you leak into every character and that a lot of you ends up in your book.
“I don’t think writers can hide,” Hanson said. “They reveal themselves in books.”
Hanson’s attendance at Wordfest is a stop on his tour for The Seminarian. So far, Hanson said the tour has been different from TV.
“I come from TV, and TV is big and noisy — there are millions of people,” he said.
Comparatively, on this tour, Hanson said he finds himself hoping people show up to get their books signed.
“There’s always a few, but you just live in constant fear that it’s gonna be you and whoever the bookstore clerk is,” Hanson said.
Hanson lives in the United States but is well-acquainted with Calgary and Canada. He lived in Calgary for two years and grew up on Vancouver Island. Additionally, he went to high school and university in Toronto and attended the University of Victoria. He later obtained his graduate degree/MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. After establishing a writing career in Canadian television, Hanson and his family moved to the States in 1998.
“There are things about Canada that never leave you, that you miss all the time,” said Hanson.
Hanson remembered visiting Calgary during a cross-country bike ride from Newfoundland to Victoria, B.C., in the summer of 1981. Hanson’s ride wasn’t for mere sport; he was trying to secure a job after graduating from university. Hanson studied political theory with a minor in English and intended to pursue journalism.
“I was just having no luck finding work. So I thought, well, maybe if I persuade a newspaper to pay me to ride my bicycle across the country and write about it that will get me a job,” Hanson recalled.
Hanson had cycled across the prairies for about a month when he reached Strathmore. He described himself as a wreck during that time.
“[I was cycling] against a wind that just never let up and dehydrated you,” he said. “I cried a couple times, I got sunstroke and then I got hit with this hailstorm.”
He found refuge when he “coast[ed] into Calgary,” as he describes because the paper he had been writing for arranged for him to stay at a hotel downtown.
“Oh, I got a shower [and] I got a bath,” Hanson exclaimed. “I’m very appreciative of Calgary.”
Although moments like this exemplify Hanson’s dedication to his writing career, the author didn’t always know he wanted to write professionally.
“I was an undergrad at U of T [the University of Toronto] when I started meeting people who said they wanted to be writers,” Hanson said. “It kind of put in my head that maybe I’ll go into journalism, maybe I’ll become an essayist. I knew I wasn’t going to become a Nobel prize-winning writer, but I thought, I can do what I can do. And that was thanks to U of T.”
With Bones being a successful and widely recognized piece of Hanson’s anthology, Hanson said it could “very easily” say on his tombstone: “The Bones guy.”
“[For aspiring writers] my advice is so boring, and so cliche, but the main thing is, write things, and finish them,” he said. “It’s not very exciting advice, but you just keep at it. You put your ass in the chair, and you write. If you finish something, even if it’s just awful, you learn so much. A studio executive gave me a t-shirt on it that said: ‘I don’t care if it’s crap, get it down on the page’ because she heard me say that to the writers so often.”
More about Hanson and tickets for his Wordfest appearance can be found here.