Conversations
Episodes
How a boy named Yuri saved me from the trauma of a bomb blast
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Debra Richardson joined the police at age 18 in the 1980s, working undercover as a prostitute and surviving the Russell Street bombing. Years later, ...
Encore: Nikki Gemmell's vivid life of love, grief and reinvention
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From Wollongong to London, via Alice Springs, this is writer Nikki Gemmell on her deeply romantic life, and how she defied expectations to become a f...
How I went from young delinquent to running a university
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Professor George Williams was uninterested in school, instead spending his time melting down lead to sell to a nearby scrap yard. Then a special prim...
What leaving my family’s Baha’i faith taught me about love and life
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Brisbane teacher and author, Sita Walker on the strong, religious matriarchs who have helped her weather the storm of family tragedy, divorce and the...
Remembering Midnight Oil's Rob Hirst
26 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Rob Hirst, the former drummer for the band Midnight Oil has died at age 70. In 2018 Sarah sat down with Rob for a wide-ranging conversation about mus...
Encore: Melissa Lucashenko and the story of Edenglassie
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Lucashenko grew up on the outskirts of Brisbane, where her Aboriginal mother grew plants and her Russian father built an improbable number of...
From drug smuggling and opium dens to marching in the first-ever Mardi Gras—Kate's coming out
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Rowe's life has been full of wild adventures and hard living. But when she found sobriety, Kate discovered something big about herself. CW: This...
I was a teenage Navy diver in the Iraq War. Then I had to make a new life for myself
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Aaron Tait was 18 when he was deployed after September 11. His dad's guidance had set Aaron up with the grit he would need as an elite Navy diver, bu...
The secret life of a hostage negotiator
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Hostage negotiation isn't at all like what you see in Hollywood blockbusters. There is no lying, no promise-making, not even any names. Vince Hurley ...
Upside down in Bass Strait
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Navigator Will Oxley expected the 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race to be a challenging one. But when he and his crew met with 12-metre waves and 80km...
New Beginnings: How Rafael Bonachela let out his inner showgirl with Kylie Minogue
16 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Rafael Bonachela was born in the dying years of Franco’s Spain, into a patriarchal culture that didn’t appreciate little boys who wanted to dance...
New Beginnings: Justin Heazlewood on swapping fame for his hometown
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Justin Heazlewood fled a complicated early life in Tasmania searching for fame as an artist on the mainland but then moved back to his home town of B...
New Beginnings: When a sea change collides with messy midlife
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For journalist Kate Halfpenny, moving to a beachside town during Melbourne's lockdowns seemed like the perfect way to unwind and escape her huge mort...
New Beginnings: Artist Loribelle Spirovski on finding family and love
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The artist Loribelle Spirovski on her unusual childhood in the Philippines, meeting her father for the first time at 7 years old, and making her way ...
New Beginnings: Felicia Djamirze, beauty queen and drug dealer
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Felicia Djamirze grew up in the criminal underworld, then became a beauty queen. But her life outside the pageant circuit was mired in the world of d...
Holiday listening: Anh Nguyen Austen's story of rescue and reinvention
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When Anh Nguyen Austen was a small girl, her family fled South Vietnam on a boat which met a once-in-a-century storm in the South China sea. When all...
Holiday listening: the secret world of the human ear
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For Professor Kelvin Kong, the ear is our most beautiful organ. Kelvin is a proud Worimi man and an ENT surgeon at the forefront of medical innovatio...
Holiday Listening: Birds, bees and intelligent machines
04 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When Professor Mandyam Srinivasan began studying bees almost 35 years ago, we was interested in learning how bees landed so elegantly, and avoided co...
Holiday Listening: Nerida's nudibranchs, sea dragons and siphonophores
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As a marine molecular biologist, Dr Nerida Wilson spends a lot of her time getting acquainted with the mysterious creatures lurking in the dark depth...
Holiday Listening: Lee Berger, the real-life Indiana Jones, and the Case of the Lost Hominids
31 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Lee Berger entered the field of palaeoanthropology there was a one in 10,000,000 chance he would discover anything 'worthwhile' digging around S...
Holiday Listening: Fishing for feelings -- the many ways fish are smarter than you think
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Culum Brown is a leading researcher in the field of fish cognition, his research has shown that even that smallest fish are capable of learning an...
Holiday Listening: The flying vet from Outback Queensland
29 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Campbell Costello's work as a vet has taken him out of his family's station in North Queensland to places as far flung as Kazakhstan, Mongolia and...
Holiday Listening: Slime moulds—the brainless blobs that can move and solve mazes
28 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Tanya Latty is an insect scientist with a quirky taste in pets, and a keen eye for detail, but it's the lessons from her brainless pet slime mould...
Holiday Listening: David Bindi Hudson on playing his didgeridoo at the Taj Mahal
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When his elders named him Bindi, David Hudson had no idea his future would involve performing with his didgeridoo at the Taj Mahal, or a role in a fi...
Holiday Listening: Learning from the mighty matriarchs of the animal kingdom
24 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Erna Walraven was one of the first female zookeepers to work at Sydney's Taronga Zoo in the 1980s. Despite practical jokes from her male colleagues, ...
Best of 2025: Mike Doleman on surving the Blythe Star
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At 18 years old, Mick Doleman miraculously survived when his ship capsized in the freezing Southern Ocean off Tasmania. But as he floated in a life r...
Best of 2025: How I became a brainwashed cult bride
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Liz Cameron was 18 years old when a stranger approached her in a book shop. It was the beginning of her induction into a cult, and it was an experien...
Best of 2025: The young boat builder who rowed across the Pacific
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Robinson was a 14-year-old living in the Brisbane suburbs when he made a promise to himself to become the youngest person ever to row across the ...
Best of 2025: Claire Keegan on bravery, writing and the single life
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The bestselling Irish author grew up on a farm set on “50 acres on the side of a hill”. Growing up, she witnessed a harsh, misogynistic country t...
Best of 2025: How Vincent Fantauzzo's life was saved by love and painting
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When artist Vincent Fantauzzo was a boy he was a street-fighting petty criminal with dyslexia and a blazing talent for drawing. He escaped jail time,...
Encore: the life of Norman Swan
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How a boy from Glasgow named Norman Swirsky grew up to become Australia's most famous doctorWhen Norman was 10 years old his dad decided to change th...
William McInnes' bittersweet summers — budgie smugglers, boardies and bumming around
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The author and actor thinks summer in Australia is done bigger, better and weirder than anywhere else. For three months of the year, life slows down ...
How living like a Stoic changed my life
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist and author, Brigid Delaney looked into the ancient philosophy during an assignment from her editor. What she discovered led her to years o...
The Rajneeshees and me — why Martina thought she needed a guru to heal
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cult survivor and psychotherapist Dr Martina Zangger on her ten years devoted to an Indian mystic and how she learned to stand on her own two feet.Wh...
Encore: Helen Garner's love letter to her grandson, and football
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Helen Garner began following her grandson Amby's under-16s football team, it was a chance to spend more time with her youngest grandchild before...
The forgotten men who fought and died in the wild jungles of Borneo
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the very end of World War Two, Australian soldiers were sent to Borneo to dislodge the occupying Japanese Forces. The story of their brutal fighti...
Deciding to live—recovery from a decade long battle with anorexia
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While battling anorexia Lexi Crouch was admitted to hospital 25 times and placed in an induced coma twice, when doctors told her she would die she be...
Frosty the supercars legend and his race to the top of Mount Panorama
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Winterbottom grew up in outer Western Sydney, in a family with not much money to spend on expensive hobbies. But by an extraordinary twist of fa...
Encore: author Heather Rose on the grief lodged deep in her body
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Heather's brother and grandfather died in a tragic drowning accident when she was 12 and from that day, she began looking for a way to commune with ...
A former army psychologist on ketamine therapy, PTSD and her surrogate twins
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Louise O'Sullivan spent 10 years with the ADF, including deployments with the Special Forces in Afghanistan which eventually left her with PTSD, but ...
Dad, Bob Marley and me
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After the death of her father, a spiritual moment with the life-size wooden statue of Bob at Nine Mile convinced queer rapper, Jamaica Moana that eve...
How a pair of disobedient missionaries invented Australia's most iconic road trip
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tens of thousands of 'van lifers' and 'grey nomads' drive around Australia each year. But the iconic road trip has a surprising origin story involvin...
Encore: How Johnathan Thurston became one the greats
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despite being a stand-out young player, many NRL clubs initially rejected Johnathan Thurston because they thought he was too small and wiry but he we...
How Aunty Rhonda learnt to cry
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artist, author and Stolen Generations survivor, Rhonda Collard-Spratt, on bush hugs, beehives, emu bumps, and finding peace.Aunty Rhonda Collard-Spra...
From democracy to dictatorship and back again—how freedom falls and tyranny takes hold
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr James Loxton on how modern democracies can crumble as authoritarian regimes take hold, but also how freedom and democracy can rise again, from the...
A bulldog on the ice -- Eric's journey from the South Pole to Outer Space
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Philips has always loved cold weather and from young age became fixated on the idea of polar exploration and following in the footsteps of the a...
Encore: Love, sex and the secret life of retirees
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Screenwriter Samantha Strauss on her grandmother's vibrant last years in a Gold Coast retirement home where love, sex and startlingly pragmatic conve...
Making peace and finding laughter in my family's dark past
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reuben Kaye has always known he was going to be a performer and grew up a house that encouraged his love of the limelight. But in the background wa...
Loving and losing three good men—the story of a ballerina called 'Blossom'
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Petal Ashmole Winstanley was just a teenager when she left Perth on her own to sail to London. There, in the swinging 1960s, she began her wild adven...
The conspiracy that brought down the Whitlam Government in the 1975 dismissal
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Editor-at-Large of The Australian, Paul Kelly looks back at the most profound crisis in Australia’s democracy, including the off-the-record informa...
Silverchair’s Ben Gillies on his life as a teenage rock god, and what happened next
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Ben Gillies was 15 he began touring around the world in his band called Silverchair. After the band broke up, Ben had to work through anxiety an...
Encore: Meet Ash Barty's mindset coach — Ben Crowe
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How does Ben Crowe get elite athletes to the top of their game? What he asks footballers, surfers and tennis players to do seems counter intuitive, a...
Uncovering the heart of my Nana’s saltwater stories
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bunurong/Boonwurrung actor and author, Tasma Walton was enjoying her big break on TV show Blue Heelers in the 1990s in Melbourne when a transformativ...
William Dalrymple's own curious history, from the Scottish coast to Mughal Delhi
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Historian William Dalrymple had a rarefied childhood on the windswept coast of Scotland. As an adult he fell in love with India, and later discovered...
The drama and the grit behind Michelle Payne's ride into Melbourne Cup history
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ten years ago, Michelle Payne became the first woman to win The Melbourne Cup but in the years since she's had to face many challenges, including a l...
Encore: The story of a wild, radical feminist socialist lesbian mum, and her son
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Writer, Ianto Ware on growing up in the suburbs of Adelaide in a single-parent, single-child family, when such an experience was rare. (R)Ianto Ware ...
How Paris helped this aerospace engineer survive anorexia
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Reid inherited her love of Formula 1 from her dad. She put her heart and soul into qualifying for a job with the renowned racing team, Williams,...
The strange tale of the artist who stole 3000 butterflies
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Walter Marsh with the surreal tale of Colin Wyatt, the ski champion, mountaineer, wartime camouflage expert, artist, and naturalist who committed one...
Why this humanitarian doctor swapped Byron Bay for a war zone and what happened next
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Katie Treble grew up crying at about how all the king's horses and men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. It was that compassion that made he...
Encore: Aaron Fa’Aoso on his mistakes, heartaches, and lucky breaks
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Aaron was living on the tip of Cape York when he borrowed his uncle’s dinghy to make it to his first acting audition on nearby Thursday Island.He w...
‘Maximalist power queen’ Em Rusciano on the diagnoses that revealed her
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The singer, podcaster, writer and comedian on living big with neurodivergence, and owning her manic, creative energy.Growing up in Melbourne in the 1...
Telling the future and the past through the palm
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From fairground palmistry to the science of fingerprinting, historian Alison Bashford explores the secrets, history and psychology of the hand.Alison...
Cakes, Ottolenghi and the Fire Horse child
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Goh's life story began with a complicated childhood — and blossomed into one about culture, cake and the meaning of life.Helen was born in Ma...
Encore: Wendy Harmer on overcoming her fractured childhood
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Wendy Harmer has enjoyed huge success over four decades as a comedian, tv host and as a radio presenter. A long way from her origins in country Vic...
Why these prisoners of war wished they never escaped 'from the bloody train'
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Historian and bookseller Edmund Goldrick on the hair-raising, forgotten tale of the escaped Australian prisoners of war who stumbled into another, hi...
QAnon, 15-minute cities and sovereign citizens: Plunging into the world of conspiracy theories
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Ariel Bogle takes us inside the rallies, homes, courtrooms, secret chat rooms and $2000 Byron Bay luxury retreats where Australia’s cons...
The Hollywood insider and the murder that changed his famous family
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Griffin Dunne's acting career was just taking off when his sister was brutally attacked by an ex-boyfriend, and the outcome of the infamous murder tr...
Encore: Ben Lee, the chutzpah mystic, Bondi rock prodigy, Noise Addict
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Lee on life as a teen rock prodigy, Hollywood fame, living in an Ashram in India, and exploring his subconscious through ayahuasca, a hallucinoge...
How a heroine of Singapore survived jail and torture in WWII
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Tom Trumble tells the story of the cunning World War II Australian sabotage mission known as Operation Jaywick, and how two survivors outsm...
The unlikely outback publican of the 'Taj Mahal of the Warrego’
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fran Harding was a stay-at-home mother of eight children when her pharmacist husband came home one night with the news that the family were moving to...
Journeying to the Hadal Zone in a two-man submarine
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Todd Bond is marine ecologist who goes where very few humans have ever been: the underworld, or the deep ocean. There, he studies the strange, sca...
Remembering Dr Jane Goodall's science and her humanity
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Goodall, the renowned conservationist and pioneer of groundbreaking chimpanzee field research, has died of natural causes at the age of 91.Jane ...
Why you should empower your children to know their human rights
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lawyer Paula Gerber on the human rights of the most endangered group of people in any community - its children. They are open to the most predatory ...
The Wiggles, Red Nose Day and baby Bernadette
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Musician Paul Field on grieving the death of his baby girl, Bernadette, and how she inspired his family band, The Wiggles, to bring joy into the live...
When my parachute failed: How I survived a fall from 15,000 feet
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Brad Guy went skydiving in his early 20s, his whole family was there to watch. But when Brad jumped out of the plane strapped to his instructo...
Encore: Psychotherapist Philippa Perry says yes to feelings
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Phillipa Perry grew in England and as a teenager went to a finishing school in Switzerland where she learnt to ski and speak in a posh accent. But ...
What caring for the dying taught Bronnie Ware about living
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bronnie Ware was recovering from burnout when she wrote a blog post reflecting on years working as a palliative carer and the epiphanies patients sha...
My father Bryce Courtenay: the charming, charismatic, compulsive liar
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
To Australia he was a genius adman and best-selling author but behind closed doors Bryce Courtenay was a deeply flawed husband and father. His son, A...
How this journalist took on a war criminal and won
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, journalist Nick McKenzie heard rumours of executions and cover-ups inside Australia’s most elite military unit. For the next eight years, ...
Encore: Paralympian Christie Dawes is super/normal
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Christie took up wheelchair racing as a child as part of her rehab after a car crash left her with paraplegia. Sometimes dangerous and always thril...
How I went from being a pregnant, homeless teenager to running a BHP mining merger
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Claire Parkinson is the daughter of a long-distance lorry driver and her first job was cleaning the urinals at her local Suffolk factory. A stint as ...
265 days alone at sea — the young boat builder who rowed across the Pacific
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Robinson was a 14-year-old living in the Brisbane suburbs when he made a promise to himself to become the youngest person ever to row across the ...
The secret lives of diplomats: surviving 'bomb season' in Jakarta
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Diplomat Grant Dooley was inside the Australian Embassy building in Indonesia when a bomb went off, killing several people. This was just the beginni...
Conversations Live podcast extra: Mel Buttle
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah and Richard give you a sneak peek behind the scenes of the now complete Conversations Live Tour, Brisbane edition.Comedian, Mel Buttle was one ...
Encore: Candice Fox—How to raise a crime writer
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As a child, Candice Fox knew her family wasn't what most people would consider normal. Their Christmas included lunch at Long Bay jail, where her f...
When Dr Tottman had to run towards her life
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Charlotte Tottman is a clinical psychologist who specialises in supporting cancer patients. Both her parents had died young from different cancers...
Life after menopause, divorce and loss—How this mountaineer started all over again
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A few years ago, after a series of crisis after crisis after crisis, Allie Pepper thought she would have to give up high-altitude mountain climbing. ...
Why Dr Ranjana Srivastava tells the whole truth about cancer
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors often use euphemisms to dance around the 'C' word. But for oncologist Dr Ranjana Srivastava, how you talk to someone with cancer goes beyond ...
Encore: Danny Estrin's Eurovision glory and the bittersweet aftermath
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Voyager frontman Danny Estrin on his unconventional path from heavy metal to law and on to the Eurovision grand final (R).Danny Estrin is one of the ...
Kathleen Folbigg tells the story of her fight for freedom
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kathleen Folbigg was locked up in prison for decades, wrongly convicted of the deaths of her four children. For years, her childhood friend Tracy was...
How Alan 'the shit magnet' Playford helped revolutionise Australia's ambulance services
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When you call for an ambulance these days, chances are the officers inside will save a life. But 40 years ago, 80 per cent of Alan Playford's passeng...
Why I wrote a musical for my cheeky, charismatic, Persian mum
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ten years ago, Sydney-based artist HOSSEI took a step back from the art world to care for his sick mother. The more time they spent together, the mor...
20th Anniversary Collection: Alan Alda on bringing science to acting
30 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hollywood actor Alan Alda has devoted his life to science, by taking his acting and communication skills off the screen and into the laboratory. Alan...
20th Anniversary Collection: The male midwife working in Arnhem Land
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up south of Sydney as one of six boys, midwifery wasn't the occupation Christian Wright expected for himself. At the age of nine, he experien...
20th Anniversary Collection: Writing hit songs for Blondie, Tina Turner and Suzi Quatro
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Music was always in Mike Chapman’s blood. As a boy, he collected bottles at the Brisbane showgrounds and traded them for money, which he saved to b...
20th Anniversary Collection: Surviving PTSD as an Iraq War correspondent
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Ware witnessed some of the most violent battles in Baghdad; and was kidnapped three times.He was one of the few Western journalists to live f...
20th Anniversary Collection: A Tanzanian love story
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After a dream job as a nanny in Notting Hill, a young Donna Duggan was first lured to Africa by the charms of Zanzibar. She soon fell deeply in love ...
20th Anniversary Collection: The barber who helps boys become good men
25 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Lomu's gentle and religious life in Tonga with his grandparents showed him the meaning of love. He was on track to being a young, in-demand R...
20th Anniversary Collection: The seaweed scientist who survived being scalped
24 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Marine ecologist, Pia Winberg learned how useful seaweed could be for gut health and wound healing. One day she was conducting research by herself in...
Conversations Live podcast extra: Mandy Nolan and Wesley Enoch
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah and Richard give you a sneak peek behind the scenes of the Conversations Live Tour, Brisbane edition.Writer and comedian, Mandy Nolan and Chair...