Conversations
Episodes
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...
The ballad of Ally Colquitt
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When stripper and tattoo artist Ally Colquitt was arrested for drug dealing, it became a turning point. Inside her jail cell, she began reading, draw...
Searching for the Countess of Kirribilli
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joyce Morgan with the story of Elizabeth Von Arnim, the Australian-born literary sensation who captivated Victorian London
The butterfly effect — collecting in the Torres Strait
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Entomologist Dr Trevor Lambkin says the main thing butterfly collectors need is a sense of adventure — something he has honed over 40 years of trav...
Steve Killelea and the measure of world peace
17 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After an early life spent surfing around the world, an Australian businessman got serious about his career and created a global tool for measuring pe...
Best of 2021 - Paul Livingston
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Paul is a musician, author and performer best known for his comedic alter-ego, Flacco. In recent years he's joined an eclectic band of people who rin...
Best of 2021 - Christian Wright
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Midwife Christian Wright with tales of emergency evacuations and surfing with crocodiles while working in remote Indigenous communities in Arnhem Lan...
Best of 2021 - Mandy McCracken
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mandy's life changed completely in 2013 when she fell terribly ill with sepsis. Since then, with prosthetic replacements for all four limbs, she has ...
Best of 2021 - Sue-Ellen Kusher
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Sue-Ellen Kusher was growing up in Brisbane suburbia, behind closed doors her Dad was an ASIO spy, training his three children as foot soldie...
Best of 2021 - Charlie King
13 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gurindji man and ABC presenter Charlie knew a little about his mum's life story as he grew up. But after she died, he began to reckon with what she h...
The animal that walked into my life — story collection
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A cat, a hawk, a monkey, a crow and a lop-eared rabbit: animals who walked into the lives of five people leaving the humans to wonder, 'What am I to ...
A very William McInnes Christmas
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
William returns to reminisce about the Christmases of his childhood and his brief but brilliant stint as a department store Santa (R)William returns ...
Ann Patchett's three fathers, her writing and her secret power
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
American novelist Ann Patchett reflects on the men who made her, going a year without shopping and her power to make herself invisible
Podcast extra: If computers could speak
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As a child, Jamie Teh wanted a computer of his own so badly, he used to pretend, using his dad's business calculator. As an adult, he used this obses...
NVDA founder Michael Curran: life-changing friendship and helping blind people navigate the online world
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Curran met his friend Jamie at a music camp for blind children. Within a few years they had invented a free software to give more than 100,00...
Adam Zwar's twelve summers of cricket
06 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Australian actor and writer measures the major events of his life against big moments in Australian cricket, including the nadir of his performin...
The unusual life of Rima Hadchiti
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At 100cm tall, Rima is one of the smallest people in the world. But throughout her life, she's demanded to be heard (R)
The case for constitutional monarchies
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dennis Altman is an avowed Australian republican, but he can see the use of constitutional monarchies in times of transition. The question is: do the...
Cradle Mountain's great love story
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Legge traces the lives of pioneering naturalists Kate Cowle and Gustav Weindorfer in Tasmania's sublime wilderness (R)
Jess Hill: a new kind of power
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jess Hill was a teenage magazine founder, a travel writer, a Middle East correspondent and a survivor of serious illness before she wrote her groundb...
John Grisham: lawyering, writing and innocence
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Novelist John Grisham with his life story; from his work as a trial lawyer, to writing, and how he became involved in a movement using DNA testing to...
Abbas Nazari: After the Tampa
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Abbas Nazari was a 7 year old refugee on a sinking fishing boat in the Indian Ocean when he was rescued by the MV Tampa, just as Australia closed its...
Roxanne McDonald's deadly life on stage
25 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Mandandanji, Darambal and Wangan woman's career in theatre has taken her from Roma, in outback Queensland, around the world, with a brief break a...
The country kid economist
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Ken Henry was starting out in his career, Australia was known as the 'miracle economy'. Economics got inside him and Ken eventually helped the c...
The story of English
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Linguist Kate Burridge with the story of how Old English began on a small, damp island on the periphery of the world
Harry and the monster croc
22 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Harry Bowman tells adventurous tales from his three decades driving tour boats in the crocodile-infested Adelaide River, including the day he saved t...
Lioness Liz and her surfer boys
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Osborne with tales of struggle, love and grief from raising her five kids as a single mum, and the moment she saw her youngest, World Champ...
The Beatles, Brian Epstein and me
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Joanne Petersen recalls working as a personal assistant to The Beatles' manager, the freedom of the Swinging Sixties in London and eloping to the Bah...
The brave lives of Charmian and Neen: Memoir writer Nadia Wheatley
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nadia Wheatley with the stories of two women ahead of their time: the writer Charmian Clift and her own mother Nina Watkin.Two decades ago, Nadia pu...
The voice of a child who can’t speak
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Samantha Wheeler’s daughter Charlotte has Rett Syndrome, a rare ‘locked-in’ disorder (R)
Kids TV host, author, trailblazer: Wendy Harmer
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Much-loved broadcaster and writer Wendy was born with a cleft lip and palate, into a struggling family. As a young journalist she saw an anarchic cab...
Growing kindness, humanising medicine
12 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Dr Catherine Crock saw her young leukemia patients suffering, she knew music would ease their pain, but she didn't know that years later she wou...
Surviving Currowan
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bronwyn Adcock with the story of one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia’s 2019 Black Summer: the Currowan fire
Dr Meryl, Death Detective
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Meryl Broughton with stories from her work conducting autopsies at a country mortuary (CW: Graphic descriptions)
From the ashes of a failed farm
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Pekin lost his family’s 4th-generation farm, and in despair, walked away from everything and into the wilderness. After much soul-searching ...
Confessions of a drama kid
08 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Actor and writer Brendan Cowell with tender and funny tales from his boyhood as a child actor and a budding playwright
David Stratton's reel life
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The critic on what he has learned from watching 25,000 films, and that time he peed on Federico Fellini
After Covid, the possibility of hope
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Wear on how Australia might change in the post-pandemic world
A rebel on the legal bench
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David Heilpern with stories of drama, crime and heartache from his 21 years as a country magistrate (CW: references to drug use and sexual assault)Fo...
The hero of The Zebra
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Kent with the true story of the Prussians who fled Europe for a new life in South Australia in 1838, then met a malevolent doctor on board the...
Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church
01 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Megan Phelps-Roper grew up inside the notorious Westboro Baptist Church family. In 2012 she left the church, and her family, to live in the world she...
Jazz kings and wayward women
29 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Deirdre O'Connell with a tale of music, race and a secret militia set in Australia's Jazz Age (CW: discretion is advised when listening)
How music keeps Allison alive
28 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As a child, ordinary sensations of clothes on her skin made Allison Davies feel as though her life was under threat. She recognised the life-changing...
A blind croc, a missing man and his dog
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kylie Stevenson delves into the story of Paddy Moriarty, who went missing from Larrimah, an outback Northern Territory town known for a weird pink pa...
Night of the midget subs — Sydney under attack
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1942 three midget submarines armed with torpedoes made their way into Sydney Harbour to launch an attack on Allied warships. They were sent by the...
How a fish with tiny fingers changed history
25 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Palaeontologist John Long found his first fossil in a Melbourne quarry as a 7 year old. He grew up to unearth new clues as to how we became human, an...
Stupid crooks, crooked cops, and honest John
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Former narcotics agent, John Shobbrook battled corruption when investigating an audacious plan to air-drop heroin into Far North Queensland in the 19...
Motorbikes, cheetahs, and the Maggie Island mail run
21 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Roland de Chazal is best known for being the 81-year-old motorbike postie on Magnetic Island, but his earlier life in Rhodesia had its moments too —...
Judy Brewer's Mudgegonga love song
20 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Judy on life with her late husband, the politician Tim Fischer, and how her son Harrison helped inspire a new beginning on her farm (R)
Rock and Dave Grohl
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stories from Dave Grohl about his life in music, including how he went from being "that guy from Nirvana” to a superstar rock star fronting the Foo...
Finding Stalin's wine cellar
18 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Baker on hunting down a cache of rare and impossibly valuable French wine hidden away by Josef Stalin, deep in the Republic of Georgia (R)
Ed Ayres' life in music
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Music was always a friend to Ed, but while he struggled to come to terms with being trans, he couldn't face his beloved instruments. Once he accepted...
The railway child: Monica from Clare
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Monica McInerney with tales from her childhood in a railway family in the South Australian town of Clare (R)
Costa Georgiadis: Heart and Soil
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Australia's most famous landscape architect on learning from the garden, Greek school and his Yiayia
The Nazi Brigadeführer who got away
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Philippe Sands on how a cache of letters sent him on the trail of Nazi war criminal Otto Von Wachter, who escaped to Rome on the 'Ratline' (R)
Jenny Kee's incandescent life
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Designer Jenny Kee with the story of her wild and creative life, including how she and Linda Jackson began a movement which changed Australian fashio...
Paul Kennedy on finding his way
08 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The ABC Sports presenter describes his life at 17, a year dominated by football, girls, beer, and a serial killer stalking his neighbourhood
The Powerful Owls of Wombat Forest
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
While they greet one another with soft "woohoos", carefully feed their fat, fluffy babies and bleat at sunset, field naturalist Tanya Loos keeps an e...
Surviving two volcanoes — Singer Ngaiire's story
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When an eruption began in 1994 in Papua New Guinea, the last thing singer-songwriter Ngaiire expected was a second volcano to begin spewing ash. Tuni...
The needle in the tofu
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Zen priest and writer Ruth Ozeki takes us into world brimming with the voices of people and household objects, and her own experience of hearing her ...
The rise and fall of the Rock Star
04 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David Hepworth charts our fascination with that most earth-bound of gods, the rock star; and discusses some of music history's striking examples (R) ...
The Soldier and the mare
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After Isaac Adams returned from Afghanistan struggling with anger and hypervigilance, he found that working with traumatised racehorses was helping h...
A Rainbow's arc
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lynn Rainbow grew up in a castle in one of Australia’s most theatrical families. In the 1970s she became a famous actress, before she began a new l...