Hart Hanson

Hart Hanson is the Creator and Executive Producer of Bones. He was born on the West Coast of Canada to an American father and a Canadian mother. He spent the rest of his childhood and adolescence moving East, eventually finishing high school in Mississauga, Ontario, whereupon he decided to pursue a career as a heavy metal guitar god just as the Sex Pistols released "Never Mind the Bollocks..." - thus rendering heavy metal guitar gods not only moribund but ridiculous.

Abandoning his childish dreams of being a guitar god, Hanson enrolled in Maths and Sciences in university. A year later, abandoning his childish dreams of being a physicist, he changed majors and graduated from University College, University of Toronto, with a degree in English and Political Theory. While there, Hanson took part in a writing workshop, won a college creative writing competition and met Governor-General Award-winning novelist Jack Hodgins, whose polite comments Hanson interpreted as a sign from God that he should become a writer. He did this by riding his bicycle across Canada, from Newfoundland to Victoria, BC, against the wind, and writing about his adventures for the Toronto Sunday Sun.

After working for a few long, gray years as a technical writer in Toronto, Hanson decided that an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia was his ticket out of hell. Uncharacteristically, he was right.

His thesis novel, The Last Gypsy Summer, contained a great many pages, more than double the average thesis. It was never published, a decision the Canadian publishing industry has undoubtedly regretted to this day, but it did win the prestigious National Norma Epstein Award.

Another writing project, a half-hour script written for a screenwriting class, was bought by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, thus launching a Canadian career that included The Black Stallion, Neon Rider, Northwood, The Odyssey, The Outer Limits, Poltergeist, Road to Avonlea and the series Ready or Not, for which he received his first Gemini (Canadian Emmy) nomination.

Hanson then wrote the pilot for Traders, an hour-long dramatic series set in the exciting world of investment banking, which was picked up by the Global Television Network. Though it was perhaps the worst idea ever for a television series, Traders ran for many, many years, winning many, many Gemini Awards including Best Writing for Hanson.

Hanson and his family moved to Los Angeles, where he worked on the short-lived series Cupid as a supervising producer, then as co-executive producer on the even-shorter-lived series Snoops. He moved to 20th Century Fox and worked on the series Judging Amy for three seasons, rising to executive producer, then helped launch Joan of Arcadia. Finally, Hanson wrote the pilot for BONES, which found a home on FOX and is currently in its fourth season.