Conversations
Episodes
Peter Norman and the day that shook the Olympic movement
23 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Norman's late uncle Peter won a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics, then was notoriously cast out of Australian sport (R)
The Nazi Brigadeführer who got away
22 Jun 2020
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'
The women of Steel City
19 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Robynne Murphy, film-maker and former steel worker, on the Wollongong women who took on BHP for the right to work alongside men at the steelworks
What Jack Reacher did next
18 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How a Birmingham boy became best-selling thriller writer, Lee Child (R)
How Johnathan Thurston became one of the greats
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Johnathan was a boy he was written off as too skinny and too wild for rugby league (R)
Jesse Blackadder: when Lucie left
16 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The late writer with the story of a terrible accident in 1976 which completely changed her family (R)
Outposts — what Dan found at the ends of the Earth
15 Jun 2020
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 the ...
Vika and Linda Bull — on song and in harmony
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hearing their Tongan mother’s powerful voice rise above the congregation in church, primed Vika and Linda for a life in song. Their distinctive har...
The girl from Kilkivan
11 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the midst of Lisa Millar's brilliant career as a journalist, she found herself in the grip of aviophobia, a crippling fear of flying (R)
Opium everywhere — on the trail of the 'Milk of Paradise'
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Lucy Inglis on humankind's greatest painkiller and how its trade and cultivation are threaded through the story of civilisation, and the li...
The comic genius of Jennifer Saunders
09 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The co-creator of Absolutely Fabulous says her success rests on a series of happy accidents and calls herself an extreme procrastinator (R)
Conspiracy theories and me
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Danna Young's husband Mike received a terrible diagnosis, she found herself drawn to conspiracy theories in the search to find someone, or somet...
Comedian Hannah Gadsby on trauma, critics and the point of no return
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Australian comedian on Nanette, her 'farewell' to stand up comedy; being diagnosed with high-functioning autism as an adult; and on Douglas, the show...
Pasi Sahlberg — making school the happiest place to be
04 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Pasi was a boy he would sneak into his father's empty schoolroom in northern Finland and pretend to be a teacher. Now he's one of the world's le...
Talking magpies, grieving tawny frogmouths and canny galahs
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Gisela Kaplan fell under the spell of birds when she hand-reared a magpie nestling. When it learned to speak, she was so intrigued she switched caree...
Voicing velociraptors and capturing the dawn chorus — the soundscapes of Douglas Quin
02 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Meet a sound designer and naturalist who makes field recordings all over the world. He then puts them to use in soundscapes for film and television, ...
Uncle Jack Charles — not true blue, true blak
01 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Uncle Jack was forcibly removed from his mother as a baby and denied his Aboriginality. A one-off trip to Fitzroy connected him with a family he didn...
From the Festivals — Tim Flannery on Europe's bizarre prehistory
29 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Europe's startling deep past explained: pygmy dinosaurs, blue-eyed Neanderthals; and how an asteroid the size of Manhattan ruptured everything (R)
From the Festivals — Andrew Sean Greer
28 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less was working as an odd-jobs man for an Italian Baroness when a phone call upended his life (R)
From the Festivals — Cheryl Strayed
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Walking through grief and facing up to life on the Pacific Crest Trail, the true story of Wild (R)
From the Festivals — Lemn Sissay
26 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Celebrated British poet Lemn Sissay grew up not knowing his given name or his Ethiopian parents. His life was shaped by being adopted, and then raise...
From the Festivals — James Rebanks the Herdwick shepherd
25 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
James explains the traditions, language and pleasures of shepherding in England's Lake District (R)
Chasing Robert Cutter
22 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Darleen Bungey set out to uncover her father's past she discovered a Hollywood heartthrob and a singer whose records outsold Bing Crosby's
Maira Kalman: 'I fall in love so many times during the day'
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Maira's daily life as a New York-based artist who likes to paint trees, dogs and hats, and why the contents of her mother's closet became famous
The pigment whisperer
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One of the world's only master paint-makers, David Coles on how he found a life creating colours like Lapis Blue and Rose Madder (R)
This is your Captain speaking
19 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On 9/11 Captain Beverley Bass diverted her American Airlines jet to a tiny town in Newfoundland, along with thousands of other airspace refugees (R)
With a shark under each arm: Dr Fish Feelings
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Culum Brown's work on fish cognition has proven fish have long memories, sharks have friends, and sting rays know when it's the weekend
Miranda Tapsell — Kakadu, Cannes and love stories that matter
15 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Miranda's story from growing up in Kakadu National Park as a Larrakia Tiwi girl, to finding fame in The Sapphires, and co-creating Top End Wedding, t...
Moomins, motherhood and me — Sheila Heti
14 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Heti on the life of Finnish writer Tove Jansson who created the Moomins, and some of her own reflections on her choice about whether or not to...
Helen Garner — from Moonee Ponds to Paris
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Helen recently published her diaries from the years 1978 to 1987. They include her thoughts on writing and work, parenting, love affairs, and the que...
A true Lord of the Flies story and what we got wrong about human nature
12 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Rutger Bregman takes a new look at the accepted idea that humans are just one disaster away from bad behaviour. He says our species' survival has lon...
Hayley Katzen's unexpected life as a farmer's wife
11 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Hayley moved to a cattle property to live with her farmer girlfriend, the rural idyll wasn't quite as she imagined
Marian Keyes on growing up
08 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A new conversation with the Irish novelist, on what it means to be a grown up, and standing her ground on Ireland’s moral questions
Adrian Mole and the Shropshire postman
07 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Young Robert Lukins modelled himself on the fictional character Adrian Mole, a prodigious reader and writer (R)
Sandy Mackinnon's fantastic voyage through the canals of Europe
06 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sandy was teaching at a school in the English countryside when he set off in a Mirror dinghy, intending to sail as far as Gloucester (R)
William Dalrymple on the ruthless rise of the British East India Company
05 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How a group of financiers from a poor and damp island on the outer rim of Europe created a private company which came to rule India (R)
The speech collector
04 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tony Wilson was always drawn to the world's great speeches. Then, without warning, he was called on to make the most difficult speech of his life
Kindness and coincidence — Naomi Shihab Nye
01 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Naomi is an American poet and author living in San Antonio, Texas. Her family story is marked by life-changing coincidences, and narrow escapes
Not fourteen for ever
30 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How Shannon Molloy survived the worst year of his life, as a gay teenager at an all boys' school on the coast of Central Queensland
Magda Szubanski — my father, the assassin
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A much-loved performer digs into the challenging truth of her father's past (R)
Christiaan Van Vuuren's fully sick life
28 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While confined to a hospital room for months with a rare form of tuberculosis, Christiaan found love and an entirely new path in life
Disappointing Dickens — Charles Dickens' son in the Australian outback
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Keneally with the story of Edward 'Plorn' Dickens who was sent to live in Australia when he was sixteen in the hope he might redeem himself
The life and death of boxer Davey Browne
24 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2015, Sydney boxer Davey died of brain swelling after he was knocked out in the ring. When journalist and boxer Stephanie Convery reported on the ...
A therapist peers inside her own mind
23 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When therapist Lori Gottlieb found herself in therapy after a devastating breakup, she began to rethink her own life story
John Prine — from Paradise to Nashville
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A songwriter's songwriter, John turned his often bemused view of people and politics into songs for fifty years (R)
16 sunrises and sunsets in a day — life aboard the Space Shuttle
21 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Astronaut Jim Bagian on working, eating and sleeping in micro-gravity while orbiting the earth at 28 000 kilometres an hour
The healing power of dogs
20 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Leaver became fascinated by the curative qualities of dogs after her Shih Tzu Bertie helped her through her darkest days
Big Adventures — aviator Charles Kingsford Smith
17 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Biographer Ann Blainey with the tale of Smithy, king of the Milky Way, and his audacious flight across the Pacific in his plane the Southern Cross (R...
Big Adventures — Alexander McCall Smith
16 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How a lifetime exploring different landscapes inspires the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, who's also one of the world's most...
Big Adventures — Paula Constant Part 2
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Walking the Sahara, towards the fabled city of Timbuktu and into Niger (R)
Big Adventures — Paula Constant Part 1
14 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A breathtaking Saharan adventure: camels, bandits and one fearless woman (R)
Etgar Keret's seven good years
13 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A writer recalls the precious stretch of time between the birth of his son, and the death of his father (R)
Min Jin Lee's good fortune
10 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The author of bestselling novel, Pachinko, explores the lives of generations of Koreans in Japan (R)
Bonus: when Sarah's Dad's fruit shop map went viral
09 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to her dad’s hand-drawn map, a shopping trip Sarah Kanowski made for her parents during the Covid-19 crisis gladdened hearts on social media...
Hugh Mackay on building community in a crisis
09 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Social researcher Hugh Mackay on the many ways Australian society can pull together while we're meant to live apart
Paul Kelly and the poetry
08 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Australia's storyteller in song on poems he's loved since childhood, and how reading and learning great poetry has changed his song writing (R)
Ray Collins — life in the black, and the blue
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ray was a coal miner when an accident underground left him lying prone in a tunnel a kilometre beneath the earth. What he did next changed the course...
Julia Baird on finding shards of light in dark times
06 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After journalist Julia Baird survived a terrible bout of cancer, she began to think about what sustains us when the world goes dark
Doll's prams and hand-knitted togs: a Hockney family portrait
03 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
John Hockney grew up in an unconventional family of five siblings in post-war Yorkshire. As a child, his brother David drew constantly on any paper h...
A father and son odyssey
02 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Daniel Mendelsohn signed up for a Mediterranean cruise to Ithaca with his aging father, neither of them could have predicted what would happen n...
Bill Bailey — seriously funny amateur naturalist
01 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Bailey's passion for twitching began as boy growing up in England's west country (R)
Tales from captivity
31 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Stories of imagination, poetry and menace while living in captivity, from Kari Gislason and Candice Fox
Elizabeth Gilbert on love and letting go of normal
30 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How a flash of insight about her life saw Liz upend almost everything in it
Bringing life-saving dialysis to Central Australia
27 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Brown always wanted to be a remote area nurse. Then she began a medical revolution (R)
Saving tiny lives — the mission of a flying midwife
26 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jan Becker on saving the lives of newborn babies in the 'golden minute' after birth (R)
Graham Martin on going from doctor to patient
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Psychiatrist Graham Martin learned a lot of new things about medicine when he unexpectedly and painfully became the patient (R)
Nursing on Sydney's streets
24 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When working with people experiencing homelessness, Erin Longbottom looks to their strengths to help them find their way to health, and a home (R)
The man who saved a million brains: Creswell Eastman's pioneering work with iodine deficiency disorder
23 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Abolishing iodine deficiency throughout the world was this doctor's mission (R)
The Queen of Country — Joy McKean
20 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Travelling Australia with her husband Slim Dusty brought challenges and rewards
Ten women — a series of murders in Depression-era Sydney
19 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tanya Bretherton tells the story of the victims whose killings were largely ignored by police, and whose fate haunted the streets of eastern Sydney
The story of the Snowy
18 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Siobhan McHugh set out to write a history of Australia's Snowy Scheme, she unearthed stories of pugnacious unionists, drowned towns and a love s...
The life of Angela Lansbury
17 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The warm, funny and slightly terrifying Angela Lansbury opens up about her seven-decade long career on stage and screen (R)
Life after Troll Hunting
16 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After she was trolled online, Ginger Gorman turned to face her attackers, and developed a completely new understanding of why people abuse others onl...
Building a school for the world’s poorest children — Gemma Sisia's story
13 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A donation of land and $10 was all Australian-born Gemma needed to establish The School of St Jude in Tanzania
Parenting our parents — Jean Kittson on looking after Mum and Dad
12 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As Jean negotiated the maze of caring for her ageing parents, she began collecting the information she found useful, as well as asking herself and ot...
Hannah Kent and the Good People of Ireland
11 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The fairies of Ireland's folk culture were capricious twilight creatures who could bestow favour or grave misfortune (R)
The miracles and limits of modern medicine
10 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Doctor Karen Hitchcock peers into the culture of modern medicine, from the flu season to female viagra, to dementia and the humble sick day
Devices and democracy: will Big Tech control us?
09 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jamie Susskind on how digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics and virtual reality are transforming our political s...
Changing how we talk about rape
06 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Extraordinary survivor Sohaila Abdulali was seventeen when she was gang raped and forced to fight for her life (R)
This anxious life: Dr Mark Cross
05 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mark is an experienced consultant psychiatrist who also suffers from Australia's most common mental health condition, anxiety. His direct insight hel...
The secret life of the Grey Plover
04 Mar 2020
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...
The songs of trees
03 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Biologist David George Haskell on how he discovered the unique songs of trees, and the way they interconnect (R)
Julia's forgetful heart
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Julia Stevens was one of Australia's top triathletes when doctors told her they needed to implant a tiny defibrillator inside her chest wall to keep ...
Matt Okine on growing up when everything is falling apart
28 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Matt on his Brisbane childhood, losing his mum at the age of 12, and how a chance conversation with his university drama teacher altered the course o...
Jackie French and the Valley
27 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jackie has lived in the Araluen Valley of NSW for 46 years, where powerful owls boom through the nights and lyrebirds scratch up the garden. In recen...
How a former ironman made the beach accessible to everyone
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For a time, surf-loving athlete Nick Marshall was a professional Ironman. Then he created a new way for kids with special needs to be included at the...
A revolutionary idea to stop good food going to waste
25 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ronni Kahn saved 45,000 tonnes of food from landfill and changed how we think about food waste
Eric Idle's life on the bright side
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Eric on life before and after Monty Python's Flying Circus (R)
Mike Hayes and the Holy Grail of winemaking
21 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mike was 15 when he left school to chip weeds in a Queensland vineyard. Forty years later he found himself in Portugal holding one of the world's old...
Thea Hayes the walkabout nurse
20 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Thea was hired as a nurse on one of the largest cattle runs in the world, the job expanded to include hostessing and saving cows with clover blo...
Botox, castrations and beauty pageants: Inside the world of Australia's only camel vet
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Margie Bale's car is loaded with ultrasounds, milk crates and angle grinders. All the things needed when you're tending to 7-foot tall camels in the ...
Young Hitler
18 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How WWI helped a homeless vagabond named Adolf Hitler become the dictator of the German Reich (R)
The pavlova in the suitcase
17 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Michelle Garnaut on how she began one of the world's most famous restaurants in communist-era Shanghai (R)
The unusual life of Rima Hadchiti
14 Feb 2020
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
Lorenzo Montesini's Vietnam War love story, and life after Pitty Pat
13 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1990 Lorenzo shocked Sydney society by leaving heiress Primrose Dunlop at the altar in Venice to run off with his best man. But behind the headlin...
Benny and the pact with God
12 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When doctors told Benny Agius her baby son had Down syndrome, she was full of anxiety about his future. Then Richard grew up to defy everyone's expec...
Taking the pulse of a dopesick nation
11 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The opioid crisis is destroying hundreds of thousands of American lives and Beth Macy has been up close to it (R)
Villainesses, Vulcans and a new sort of sexuality — the life of Judith Anderson
10 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Judith was an Australian who found screen stardom in 1940s Hollywood, and has since became a lesbian icon. Biographer Desley Deacon tells her story
Fish, frogs and a photographer
07 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nature photographer Gary Cranitch on his working life floating off the Great Barrier Reef to capture a split-second image of the 'biggest orgy on the...
Steve's life in the London squats
06 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Steve Bevington talks about his years in the thick of an underground movement of London squatters, who would break into abandoned buildings, change t...