Conversations
Episodes
Catherine Martin: making Elvis and loving Baz
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How a fashion-loving misfit from Sydney took over Hollywood with husband Baz Luhrmann, winning more Oscars than any other Australian
Maggie Dent — raising strong girls
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Guiding daughters to become confident young woman in an age of smartphones and early sexualisation is tough. The parenting expert says in this comple...
The cerebral cartographer
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Professor George Paxinos has mapped more parts of the brain than anyone else in the world. He's been creating atlases of this most mysterious organ f...
Michelle versus the Atlantic Ocean
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From working in a bank and behind a bar, to rowing solo across an ocean, the story of Michelle Lee's remarkable transformation and the voyage which...
Artificial Intelligence — a moral future
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Toby Walsh is a world leader in AI research. He asks questions like, 'can we train machines to be fair?' and 'how do we resist the spread o...
Putting lipstick on a great white shark
03 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rodney Fox was torn apart by a great white shark and it took 462 stitches to put him back together again. He was then instrumental in filming Jaws, t...
The Jane Austen cure
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After 50 years of marriage Ruth Wilson took some time alone. In a yellow cottage with a dogwood tree in the garden, she began re-reading the novels o...
Gillian Bell — life and cake
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gillian has the best job in the world — travelling overseas to bake sumptuous and heartfelt wedding cakes, using foraged and fresh produce to tell ...
Megan Davis: the road to the Uluru Statement from the Heart
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Megan Davis was raised as a 'Queensland Rail kid', then in a book-loving household in a housing commission home. She grew up to become a lawyer at th...
Mawunyo's life in love, journalism and hip hop
30 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mawunyo Gbogbo grew up in a church-going Ghanaian-Australian family in the mining town of Muswellbrook, NSW. As a young woman she grabbed the chance ...
Wendy McCarthy's bold life
27 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How a sheltered girl who grew up on a soldier settlement farm in country New South Wales grew up to become a feminist trailblazer
Upside down in Bass Strait
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ocean racing navigator Will Oxley first learned his trade through celestial navigation, using a sextant and the stars. He then began ocean racing aro...
Briana, Max and Freddy: love, trains and mouth music
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Briana Blackett was a journalist working in Qatar when she realised her baby son Max wasn't responding to his name. When Max was diagnosed with autis...
The caving time lord
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Kira Westaway is a geochronologist who places modern and ancient humans in context by dating things found in caves. For Kira, how we understand ou...
The hunt for Hitler's horses by an art sleuth
23 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Art detective Arthur Brand met neo-Nazis, billionaire collectors and underground art dealers on his hunt for the two enormous bronze horse sculptures...
Healing the grieving heart
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wendy Liu has spent many years right up close to death. As a forensic counsellor she worked with families who had lost someone to an accident or viol...
Music, mothering and Martha Wainwright
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The folk singer on the songs in her blood and the intergenerational conflict between professional creativity and family
Oumuamua's secrets
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Avi Loeb was Harvard's top astronomer when he became intrigued by reports of a pancake-shaped object the size of a football field hurtling through ou...
A history of war, humanity and technology
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Gwynne Dyer on his search to understand whether war is embedded in human nature, and why things are changing, despite the world becoming le...
Anita Jacoby uncovers painful secrets hidden by her loving father
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Anita Jacoby has spent decades uncovering the truth about other people, but when she turned the lens on her own father, she was shockedAnita Jacoby h...
Building a school for the world’s poorest children — Gemma Sisia's story
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A donation of land and $10 was all Australian-born Gemma needed to establish The School of St Jude in Tanzania (R)
Tom Tilley: losing my religion
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Tilley was raised in a loving Pentecostal family, but as he grew up he began to question the church's teachings, especially when it came to speak...
Searching for Margot
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When teacher and actor Ned Manning lost his mother when he was 12 years old, he knew little about her life. So as an adult, he set off to re-imagine ...
The audacious athletes who cheated their way to the top
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From dodgy marathon runners to table tennis stars who 'dope' their paddles, there are few sports which can claim immunity from cheating
Louisa and the King of Kowloon
09 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Louisa Lim with a history of the city of Hong Kong, including the true story of Tsang Tsou Choi, the 1950s graffiti artist who became a cultural icon...
Teddy Tahu Rhodes and the letter that changed his life
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
He's one of the world's most acclaimed opera stars, but Teddy Tahu Rhodes did everything he could, for a very long time, to avoid his destiny on stag...
The hunt for the world’s largest owl
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wildlife biologist Jonathan Slaght on his adventurous quest to save the rare, shaggy fish owls of Russia's Far East (R)
Maggie Dent — helping teenage boys grow into good men
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Maggie grew up around boys, then raised four sons of her own. Now she helps parents understand the changes teenage boys are going through as they cro...
The ghosts of Babylonia
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Irving Finkel on the ghosts who joined the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians in their day to day lives
Jackie Huggins: my father Jack
02 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jackie Huggins with the story of her father Jack, who was a surf lifesaver, a rugby league player, a soldier taken prisoner in the Fall of Singapore,...
Tony Bull and finding his voice through a prison debating club
29 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tony spent three decades in and out of jail for property crimes and safecracking. When he joined an unusual club inside Hobart's Risdon Prison, he fo...
Sylvie and the magical stew
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Sylvie Bigar thought her assignment was simple — cover the history of cassoulet, a French ancestral dish. What she discovered was a world of...
What the Totem Pole gave Paul
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since he was a boy, Paul Pritchard has been fascinated with climbing rocks. His compulsion took a terrible and beautiful turn on a matchstick of...
Lost at sea: losing faith as a Navy Chaplain
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How the Royal Australian Navy's top chaplain lost his faith
Two spoons and a dugout canoe — the story of Jock McLaren
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Gilling with the story of how a Scottish-born soldier named Jock McLaren became one of Australia's greatest World War II guerrilla fighters (R)
The green suitcase and the secret family
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Betty O'Neill's father disappeared when she was a baby. Decades later, she opened a suitcase in Poland to find a series of clues to his secret life (...
Don Winslow — private eye, safari guide and inside the narco wars
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The US crime novelist on his unlikely career progression, and how he uses his books as a way of showing the human stories behind the headlines of the...
Di Morrissey and the tragedy on Lovett Bay
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Di Morrissey grew up in a tiny village on the water, only accessible by rowboat, with film star Chips Rafferty and poet Dorothea Mackellar as her n...
Maddy, the shipwreck mermaid
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Maddy McAllister's job as a marine archaeologist involves diving into the deep to uncover the artefacts and human stories sunk in shipwrecks
Meryl Tankard: dancing beyond ballet
18 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How a former ballerina revolutionised Australia's dance landscape (R)
My brother, our farm, and seeking the source of consciousness — Mark Solms
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When he was a child in South Africa, Professor Mark Solms watched his older brother sustain a terrible brain injury. He then began his own path, to u...
Jason Om shines a light on his family secrets
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When journalist Jason Om turned his skills towards his own family story he began to understand the real story of his perfectionist Buddhist Cambodian...
Pack ice, seal fat and the big slide: Tim and Ernest's incredible journey
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Jarvis on his adventures following in the footsteps of explorer Ernest Shackleton, who tried valiantly to cross Antarctica from sea to sea, from ...
Sara El Sayed: love, tradition and rebellion
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sara El Sayed on growing up Arab in South-East Queensland, while juggling conflicting expectations from her father to be a good Muslim girl, and from...
Clinical pain neuroscientist Dr Tasha Stanton: Why chronic pain is like a bilby in a bathtub
11 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Clinical pain neuroscientist Dr Tasha Stanton explains her studies into the power of the mind when it comes to coping with injury and illness.Clinica...
Taking your cat for a walk and why dogs never stop loving — Jeffrey Masson
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The bestselling author explores animal behaviour and grief — the loss we feel when a beloved pet dies, and how other species understand death (R)
Indira Naidoo: losing a sister and finding healing
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After her younger sister died suddenly, broadcaster Indira Naidoo's world was shattered. Then she turned to her urban landscape for solace (CW: menti...
The unusual life of Elizabeth Macarthur
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Novelist Kate Grenville on the story of love, grief and mental illness she unearthed when she revisited the letters of colonial gentlewoman Elizabeth...
The world-record-breaking sheep shearer turned outback cop
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Laurie Bateman went on an intense, lonely 18-month journey to become a Guinness World Record-holding sheep shearer, but it's not the accomplishment t...
Hannah Gadsby and the point of no return
04 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Australian comedian on Nanette, her 'farewell' to stand up comedy; being diagnosed with autism as an adult; and on Douglas, the show and the dog ...
Sian Prior: reckoning with childlessness
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sian Prior with the story of the years of longing and loss which marked her quest to become a mother, and what happened when she found herself childl...
Patrick Gale's family secrets
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
English author Patrick Gale finds inspiration in the endless sunset beyond his Cornish farm, old family letters and a pair of bearskin gloves from hi...
A magical life: Arthur Coghlan
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Arthur made his name escaping from a locked 44-gallon drum in a pool of sharks, and his death-defying escapes from the 1970s soon earned him the titl...
Feeding the body, mind and spirit: J.C Faulk
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
J.C Faulk gives out over a million kilos of food each year to the hungry in his Baltimore food program. He tells how his own life story has guided hi...
The hunt for mutant waves
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Big wave surfer Kerby Brown's obsessive quest to find 'slab waves' to ride, far off the Australian coast has almost cost him his life
The mystery of the eel
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Author Patrik Svensson was just a boy when his dad introduced him to the wonders of this enigmatic fish — their birthplace in the Sargasso Sea, the...
The poker-playing cardiologist
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a child, before she escaped communist Hungary, Bo Remenyi had no ambitions. But when she got to Australia all of that changed. She's gone from cru...
Searching for who betrayed Anne Frank
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
War crimes investigator Brendan Rook on the case that was 'more frozen than cold', and his years with the International Criminal Court, scrutinising ...
Barlinnie, the Gorbals and me
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Thriller writer Helen Fitzgerald on her life as a social worker inside some of Scotland's toughest prisons (R)
Lindy Lee and the only game in town
21 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a Chinese-Australian girl growing up in the era of the White Australia Policy, artist Lindy Lee always felt that she didn't belong. When she began...
How Australia built the internet of the 19th century
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Northern Territory historian Derek Pugh recalls the 36,000 poles, undersea cable and sheer ingenuity that went into the greatest feat of engineering ...
Raised in a cult
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Serafina Tane was born into a religious cult on New Zealand's South Island. The cult leader was a charismatic but abusive man named Douglas Metcalfe,...
How Indigenous elders read the stars
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Duane Hamacher on his study of Indigenous Astronomy, which covers 65,000 years of observation, deduction, and experimentation
Mark and the rainbow connection
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Trevorrow on how the music of composers Anthony Newley and Paul Williams influenced the course of his life and began the evolution of his alter ...
Dara McAnulty and the beauty of nature
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The young naturalist shares his deep connection to the wild landscapes and creatures of Northern Ireland. Dara's first book has been highly awarded, ...
The cannabis grow house, Dartmoor prison, and making amends
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Kim Crotty was locked up in Dartmoor prison for growing marijuana, his two young sons were bereft. He began writing bedtime stories for them fro...
Diego Garijo — fighter and lover
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Mexican-American Mixed Martial artist and bare knuckle boxer on being smuggled into the US as a child in a pickup truck, and how almost losing hi...
Elizabeth Chong — the queen of Chinese cookery
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At 90, Elizabeth Chong recalls the familiar abundance of the Queen Victoria Market of the 1930s, how her father popularised the dim sim in Australia ...
Eliza Hull: playing from the heart
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Musician Eliza Hull has a condition called Charcot-Marie-Tooth which affects her mobility, and for many years she tried to hide it. But after she had...
The last keeper of Boston Light
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One of America's oldest lighthouses was built in 1716 and survived the Revolutionary War. Its first two keepers met dismal ends, but Sally Snowman wa...
Jodi and the people with possibilities
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
'Love on the Spectrum' star Jodi Rodgers on her life as a sexologist and relationship counsellor for people with Autism, and her unexpected chapter i...
Agent Sonya, Queen of Spies
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Macintyre with the true tale of 'Agent Sonya'; a housewife with 3 children and a Soviet super-spy. Sonya trained Communist rebels in Manchuria in...
Tana Douglas — a life inside the rock 'n' roll circus - Part 2
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1973, Tana Douglas found her calling. She became the world's first woman roadie in rock and roll, touring with AC/DC, Iggy Pop and Elton John *CW:...
Tana Douglas — a life inside the rock 'n' roll circus — Part 1
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1973, Tana Douglas found her calling. She became the world's first woman roadie in rock and roll, touring with AC/DC, Iggy Pop and Elton John *CW:...
Living to 120 and beyond
28 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Biologist David Sinclair believes aging is a disease, and we can find a cure for it
The fashion bloodline
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Claudia Chan Shaw’s life has been both bizarre and exquisite, moving from chronicling a man who collected his own belly button fluff, to unearthing...
Nourishing the heart
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Psychiatrist Dr Warren Ward treats patients who are severely ill with eating disorders. Understanding the mystery of human nature has driven him sinc...
From child preacher to wicked defector: leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Naomi Mourra grew up as a door-knocking Jehovah's Witness and closeted lesbian. At 21, she realised Doomsday was not upon her, and left the religion ...
A restaurant named Parwana — Afghan treasure in Adelaide
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Durkhanai Ayubi and her family keep alive the stories and flavours they carried to Australia from Afghanistan, in the dining room of their 'accidenta...
Delia and the monkey
21 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Iain McCalman on the life of adventurer Delia Akeley, and her profound connection with a vervet monkey she named 'J.T'
Taking the drop: the life of a freediver
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Freediver Amber Bourke on the serene, otherworldly experience of floating down through crystal-clear water, with no oxygen tanks or fins, 70 metres b...
Yuri Gagarin, Cold War Cosmonaut
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Walker with the thrilling, surreal story of the loyal communist and father of two who became the first person to journey into space, in a cap...
Love, grief and discipline: raising working dogs
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dog trainer Neil McDonald and cattle wrangler Joni Hall on their loyal, emotionally intelligent charges: outback working dogs
Peter Garrett: rock and roll changemaker
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett on his life in music, environmental action, and politics, and his life now on The Oils final tour
The case of the unknown sailor
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
DNA expert Dr Jeremy Austin on his 14-year quest to help solve one of Australia's enduring military mysteries: the identity of the 'unknown sailor'
The Cloudspotter
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gavin Pretor-Pinney loved gazing at clouds as a child. As an adult, his fascination with clouds drew him from England to Australia's Gulf of Carpenta...
Kate Forsyth on the intrepid and curious Charlotte Waring Atkinson
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Charlotte was Australia's first children's author. She came to the colony of NSW from London in 1826, and now her trailblazing, tragic and dramatic l...
Mimi and Viggo — a love story
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mimi Wellisch on the tumultuous path that led her back to where their story started — a Danish milkbar in 1964
Love and loss, in Watsonia
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Damian Callinan with the grand love story of his parents Adrian and Kathleen, who met in 1946 at a football match. They were together for 62 years un...
The story of the voice
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John Colapinto was singing a Beatles song in front of Bette Midler when he injured his vocal cords. The experience set him on the path to investigati...
Meet Ash Barty's mindset coach — Ben Crowe
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ben works with athletes including the Richmond Football Club and surfer Steph Gilmore in a counter-intuitive way. He helps them own their flaws, and ...
Lisa Leong: how fascinating!
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lisa Leong on her colourful and curious working life in radio, and how a personal crisis after the birth of her daughter upended almost everything sh...
The rise of the Super Bilby
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ecologist Katherine Moseby is helping Australia's bilbies, quolls, and stick-nest rats evolve to become tougher, faster and stronger, so they can sur...
The hermit of Wild Rivers
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mark May was a brilliant but troubled young man who made a decision to leave society altogether in the 1980s. He descended into a remote gorge in NSW...
Spymasters and secret agents: the birth of ASIO
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Phillip Deery on how ASIO recruited ordinary people as secret agents, including a 'nice widow from Adelaide' named Anne Neill
Saving lives with Aunty Val
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Andrew Browning first went to Ethiopia as a young medical student. He has now spent nearly two decades working with Africa’s most disadvantaged ...
From arachnophobe to spider woman
27 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Samantha Nixon used to be a quivering mess at the sight of a huntsman in the house. Today, she catches, cares for and milks tarantulas, funnel web...
Being Sharon Stone's stunt double
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ky Furneaux spent 16 years in Hollywood as a professional stunt performer, falling, fighting and breaking glass on cue. She has managed to make her n...
A father and his sons, across The 'Strez'
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Justin Carter crossed the Strzelecki Track by motorbike with his brother Chris and his aging father Neville, he knew he was in for an adventure....
Painter Wendy Sharpe on her Jewish roots
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Wendy Sharpe read her late father's diaries, she began a new exploration of her Jewish family's history, including the story of her psychic gran...