Conversations
Episodes
The life of Anna Meares
05 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anna's stellar cycling career saw her smash Australian Olympic records and become the World Champion 11 times. Then to the surprise of many, she wal...
The struggle and strife behind Steven Bradbury's win at Salt Lake City
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At the age of 20, speed skater Steven Bradbury nearly died on the ice. Then he won history's most unexpected gold medal (R)
Patrick Johnson's golden run
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How a boy who grew up on a fishing trawler became the first man in Australia to run 100 metres in under 10 seconds (R)
Paralympian Christie Dawes is super/normal
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Christie splits her time between training for road and track wheelchair races, holding down several jobs, and raising her family. The Tokyo Paralympi...
The life of Dr Norman Swan
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How a boy from Glasgow named Norman Swirsky grew up to become Australia's most famous doctor
Getting psychoactive — plant-derived drugs that change our minds
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From his daily coffee addiction to the 'war on drugs', science writer Michael Pollan's research into three psychoactive substances derived from plant...
Love, power, and my PNG family — Dame Carol Kidu
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Brisbane-born Carol followed her heart to Papua New Guinea in the 1960s. Her husband, Buri Kidu, a young lawyer from a village near the capital with ...
Reconsidering morality
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Philosopher Tim Dean on why human morality needs an update for the modern world
Finding Mer-Neith-it-tes
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When archaeologist Dr Jamie Fraser opened an 'empty' Egyptian sarcophagus, he found a 2600 year old mummy of a temple Priestess inside (R)
Rebel doctor Caroline de Costa — smuggling condoms and scaring priests
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Being a single mother and student doctor in 1960s Ireland was merely the 'first act' in Caroline's gutsy adult life. She became a pioneering obstetri...
Taming the Black Dog, and burnout
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gordon Parker is the founder of the Black Dog Institute, which works to remove the stigma around depression, mental illness and bipolar disorder. For...
When I am dead I will love this
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From Scotland's Orkney Islands, stories of how a chance meeting in a pub led Andrew Greig to climb the Himalayas, how golfing helped him recover from...
40 years in journalism — Philip Williams and his brilliant career
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A former ABC chief foreign correspondent, Philip began at the ABC as a stagehand in 1975. He left the organisation 46 years later after reporting fro...
Dr Anne Aly's passion for justice
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Anne was ten, she walked onto the school playground and a girl spat in her face after calling her ‘a dirty, Arab Muslim’. To her shock, her ...
Ben and the birth of Miss Ellaneous
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Darwin's Ben Graetz on becoming one of Australia's best-known Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Drag Queens
The former Ironman who invited everyone to the beach
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Surf-loving athlete Nick Marshall is a former professional ironman. Now a physiotherapist, he's created a new way for kids with special needs to b...
Megan Davis: the road to the Uluru Statement from the Heart
14 Jul 2021
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...
Stories from the bones — Bronze age pigs and ancient dingoes
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Zooarchaeologist Dr Melanie Fillios uses the remains and fossils of animals, including dingoes, to understand more about ancient humans (R)
Australia after COVID-19
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
George Megalogenis looks at the Morrison government's response to the pandemic so far, and asks whether the 'exit strategy' fully comprehends the cha...
Basketball and belonging — Cheryl Kickett-Tucker
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cheryl is a Wadjuk traditional owner playing the long game in the Swan Valley community where she grew up (R)
Mick Gooda on working for a better day for all of us
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A Gangulu elder, Mick was Co-Commissioner of the high profile Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territor...
Quandamooka Country to Canberra — Dr Valerie Cooms
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Aunty Kath, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, was Valerie's godmother, and just one of many staunch political figures on both sides of her family. Val worked her w...
Vic Simms and Luke Peacock on bringing new life to 'The Loner'
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Vic grew up on an Aboriginal mission in Sydney's La Perouse in the 1950s, becoming a singing star in his teens. He went on to write and record Austr...
Charlie King — my mother Ningardi's story
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gurindji man and ABC presenter Charlie knew a little about his mum's life as he grew up. But after her death, he began to reckon with what she'd live...
For the love of Niki Chawla
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tarang Chawla with his family's story of migration from India to Melbourne to make a new life, and how the murder of his sister Niki changed his own ...
Meet Ash Barty's mindset coach — Ben Crowe
01 Jul 2021
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...
Where the Music Began — a story collection
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Vic Simms, Jen Cloher, Vika and Linda Bull, Rob Hirst, Elena Kats-Chernin, William Barton with stories from their formative years
Mapping two and a half million guitars
29 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Even the cheapest guitars are made in part from trees which are becoming increasingly rare. Chris Gibson's curiosity about these timbers led him on a...
Betty Queen of Donks
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Betty Klimenko grew up as an heiress to the Westfield fortune. Then she turned her back on it all to marry the man of her dreams (R)
A wild mother and her loving son
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ianto Ware with the story of growing up in the suburbs of Adelaide with his radical feminist lesbian mother Dimity
Ben and the Big Issue
24 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ben grew up in a Glasgow housing estate, then married, went to University and made a life for himself as a musician. But some years later, he was hom...
Kyle Mewburn — transwoman superhero
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kyle was a 55-year old children's author and husband when she began living her truth as a trans woman
On becoming a memory champion
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lynne Kelly became a senior memory champion after she began researching ancient ways of transforming landscapes, objects and the human body into 'm...
River, desert, island — Julie Janson's stories
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After years teaching in the remote Northern Territory, Julie began to trace her ancestry among the Darug people around the Hawkesbury River. Her most...
Jodi and the people with possibilities
18 Jun 2021
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...
The Tsars, the lady-in-waiting and Potoroo Palace
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexandra Seddon with the story of her aristocratic Russian family and their legacy, which helped her found a wildlife refuge for potoroos, koalas, s...
Steve Biddulph and the lightbulb moment
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Parenting educator and retired psychologist Steve Biddulph was in his 50s when a chance conversation over lunch shifted almost everything about how h...
My second family is in Vanuatu
15 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Physiotherapist Sky Fosbrooke’s stint as a volunteer health worker led to a deep attachment to the people of a small South Santo village (R)
Wakefield's Kristen Dunphy — turning pain into gold
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The screenwriter and showrunner on writing television drama, her struggles with mental health, and how her time in psychiatric hospitals inspired the...
British double agent ‘Celery’ — his daring and scandalous life
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
By uncovering the complicated history of her grandfather, Carolinda Witt also gained a sizeable extended family (R)
Michelle versus the Atlantic Ocean
10 Jun 2021
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 whic...
Judith Anderson and Bruce Munday
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Two separate stories today: bakery tales from Judith Anderson whose family history is intertwined with Warwick's bread trade. Then, Bruce Munday who ...
Cornish Pasties and Powerhouse boys — a love song to Moonta
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kristin Weidenbach on her father's early life in Moonta, a Methodist-run mining town in South Australia (R)
Bob Rogers — The Beatles, the radio, and me
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A broadcasting veteran, Bob spent 70 years on air, hosting TV shows as well as topping the radio ratings in Sydney. In 1964 he was sent to London to ...
What might a kindness revolution look like?
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hugh Mackay believes humans are ‘hardwired’ to behave kindly. He returns to the program to talk about how his early-pandemic prophecies on commun...
When the Library Burned
03 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Susan Orlean on the enduring mystery of who set fire to the Los Angeles Central Library (R)
The gay preacher
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anthony Venn-Brown was a gay teenager when he gave his life to God. He tried to destroy his sexuality by exorcism and 'gay conversion' therapy before...
Growing up in old Broome
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anne Poelina, the daughter of a Timorese pearl diver and an Indigenous mother, has always been drawn back to her home town of Broome (R)
The five personalities of China
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Yat-sen Li on how his family story, marked by war, migration and knighthoods, and his own working life helped him embrace the complexities and ...
A work of the heart
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
High school English teacher, Brendan James Murray with funny, heartbreaking, inspirational and strange tales from his working life
Mama Simba — love and Tanzania
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Donna Duggan fell in love with a Tanzanian man and together they built a safari company, before an accident changed everything (R)
The turtle effect — their mysterious allure and surprising history
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Louise Pryke returns with a cultural history of turtles. With stories ranging from ancient times to modern day, and from turtle tears to Al Capone, L...
A magical life — escapologist and illusionist Arthur Coghlan
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Arthur made his name escaping from a locked 44-gallon drum in a pool of pool of sharks. His death-defying escapes in the late 1970s earned him the ti...
Christiaan Van Vuuren's fully sick life
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
While confined to hospital with a rare form of tuberculosis, Christiaan found love and an entirely new path (R)
The girl who ran away to sea — the making of Kathryn
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Working as a deckhand on a fishing trawler became the refuge Kathryn Heyman needed from the wreckage of her early life. Hitchhiking to Darwin, then w...
Let them ring — Paul Livingston on making a great big noise
20 May 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...
Jessica Cottis — inside the colour of sound
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica is an orchestral conductor and also a synesthete who 'sees' colour in her mind's eye. As an organ virtuoso she performed in some of Europe's ...
The mystery of broken-hearted syndrome
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Nikki Stamp reveals how emotional shock can be fatal (R)
Henry Reynolds and the truth
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of the foremost historians of black and white Australia, Henry says now is the time to acknowledge how the country was founded. Frontier violence...
Henry Reynolds and the truth
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
One of the foremost historians of black and white Australia, Henry says now is the time to acknowledge how the country was founded. Frontier violence...
How a doctor's suicide broke the silence
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gastroenterologist Andrew Bryant's active, social and positive exterior gave no hint of the depression he was suffering. Days after his tragic death ...
New York, Oenpelli, the Village People and me
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Allen Murphy was raised in New York and grew up to become a drummer for The Village People. When he arrived in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory ...
A Renaissance scholar on love, power, Florence and folly
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dale Kent is a Professor of Italian history who grew up in Australia. Rejecting her Christian Science upbringing, Dale forged an unapologetic life of...
The family and the jail sentence — the ripple effect of losing a parent to prison
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dennis Van Someren works as a transport volunteer with young people going to visit a parent in the prison system. Dennis does the work because he's b...
Knuckles, ruffles, flesh-bags and fences: the story of Australia's first dictionary
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kel Richards with the story of the gentleman thief James Hardy Vaux, who wrote Australia's first dictionary of convict slang
Inside the world of Australian camel vet Margie Bale
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Margie's car is loaded with ultrasounds, milk crates and angle grinders: all things needed when tending to seven ft camels in the middle of nowhere (...
Love and letting go — Sarah, Eric, and Coco
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Sarah Sentilles became a foster parent she gave herself wholeheartedly to caring for baby Coco. A year later her understanding of love, motherho...
Enron, schizophrenia, the Bowls Club and me - the life of Glenn Jarvis
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Glenn was working at Enron in London when his mental health began to unravel. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and lost nearly everything. Then a...
Kitty Flanagan's unlikely path to comedy
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kitty has woven together a series of true stories from her life including being locked in a crayfish freezer for talking too much (R)
Confronting my grandmother the Baba Yaga
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Krissy Kneen grew up under the strict control of her grandmother, Lotty, who was the eccentric and sometimes cruel matriarch of her small family. Kri...
Sarah Dingle — finding my donor dad
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah was twenty-seven when she discovered she had been conceived using a sperm donor. When she set out to find her biological father, she found out ...
Hope, hype and exploitation — the wild history of stem cell science
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Physician scientist Professor John Rasko on some of the charlatans and shining lights from the problematic and often tragic field of regenerative med...
The blue budgie in Berlin — Gisela Kaplan's story
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Animal behaviourist Gisela Kaplan grew up in devastated post-WWII Berlin, forced to eat soap and wild nettles to survive. A brilliant student who lov...
The green suitcase and the secret family
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Betty O'Neill's father disappeared when she was a baby. Decades later, inside a tiny apartment in the Polish city of Lublin she opened a green suitca...
The bloody futility of WWI's Battle of Passchendaele
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Paul Ham and the story of the terrible 'wearing down war' that took place in Ypres (R)
Meeting Japan's ghosts
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the 2011 earthquake that triggered multiple disasters in Japan, and took many thousands of lives, as told by Richard Lloyd Parry (CW: de...
Veronica Gorrie stands up
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ronnie looks back on the ten years she worked as a police officer; the childhood which shaped her, and pays tribute to the guiding strength of her pr...
Helen Zaltzman is the Allusionist
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lacking the patience required to work on a dictionary, Helen turned her abiding interest in language into the subject of a highly successful podcast....
Territory taxidermist — Jared Archibald
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jared spent his childhood behind the scenes at the Museum of the Northern Territory, up close to prehistoric kangaroo fossils, opulent trading pearl...
Lily Brett — love and Shelter Island
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
New York-based Australian writer Lily Brett moved her family to Shelter Island during the pandemic. There she's found a different speed of life and b...
Tina Arena — singing it loud
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Raised in a loving but strict Italian household, Pina Arena became ‘Tina’ to compete on Young Talent Time. Reinventing herself as an adult singer...
The AIDS angel of Arkansas
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ruth Coker Burks was a young single mum in Hot Springs, Arkansas, when she began helping the dying men everyone else had rejected
Floating through the dolines — cave diving under the Nullarbor and around the world
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stefan Eberhard on his life as a subterranean ecologist cave diving around the world, including inside the vast glowing chambers found beneath the Nu...
Villainesses and Vulcans — the life of Judith Anderson
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Widely known for her performance as Mrs Danvers, in the Hitchcock film, Rebecca, Judith gained a new cult following when she played a Star Trek Vulca...
Why Dr Brad's diet pills won't help you lose weight
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sydney GP Dr Brad McKay is often in the media warning against taking health advice from those unqualified to give it, such as Instagram 'wellness inf...
The girl in the vintage lace
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lydia Pearson with the story of the chance meeting which saw her co-found a fashion label which became a global sensation
Judith Lucy - flying solo
08 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Judith was nearly 50 and dealing with grief, menopause and a world in climate crisis when the unthinkable happened
Outposts — what Dan found at the ends of the Earth
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Richards follows his curiosity to some of the most remote habitable places in the world including an Icelandic cabin and a monastery high in th...
After the crash
06 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lech Blaine was 17 when he walked away unscratched from a fatal head-on collision outside Toowoomba which killed three of his friends and left two of...
The secret life of the Grey Plover
05 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Darby flew around the world on the trail of a small, unassuming migratory shorebird called the Grey Plover. In the middle of his journey, with...
Stories from Elmswood Farm
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Patrice Newell was a model and a TV host before she began a new life as a biodynamic farmer (R)
Love, sex and the secret life of retirees
01 Apr 2021
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...
Blood like honey — Kirsty's two rounds with childhood cancer
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Instead of becoming an Olympic gymnast as she'd dreamed, by nineteen Kirsty Everett had survived leukaemia twice and fought her way to university. A ...
George Saunders on life lessons from Russian writers
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writer George Saunders says stories by Russian writers Chekhov, Turgenev, Gogol and Tolstoy can guide us as to 'how we are supposed to be living down...
Stan Grant on a world of crisis and hope
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With countries in lockdown, the showdown with China accelerating and the rise of white supremacy, the planet stands on a precipice. Journalist Stan G...
The male midwife working in remote Arnhem Land
26 Mar 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...
My brother, our farm, and seeking the source of consciousness — Mark Solms
25 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When he was a young boy in South Africa, Professor Mark Solms watched his older brother fall from a roof and crack his skull.His brother survived but...
Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller — Broadway and me
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jeffrey tells stories of grit, brilliance and tragedy behind the making of the smash hit musicals 'Rent' and 'Hamilton'
Robina Courtin — listening to prisoners on death row
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1978 Australian Robina Courtin became one of the first westerners to be ordained as a Buddhist nun. Then a letter from a young prisoner in a Calif...
Rachael Maza's tale of three islands
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Palm Island, Mer Island, and Australia are the cornerstones of Rachael's work as an actor and a director (R)