Conversations

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...

20th Anniversary Collection: Mic's way out of the woods

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Deeply ashamed of something he had done, Mic Whitty retreated into the Welsh wilderness until an unexpected goal pulled him out of homelessness and b...

20th Anniversary Collection: Tommy Caldwell — born to climb The Dawn Wall

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tommy Caldwell grew up exploring Yosemite, looking up at El Capitan's punishing 3000ft sheer rock face. After years of training, he was ready to clim...

20th Anniversary Collection: Vickie Roach's turbulent life in and out of strife

19 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Vickie's police record began when she was just 2 years old, and followed her throughout her life. But as an adult she pushed back, challenging a fede...

20th Anniversary Collection: Born blind at the right time

17 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Law Professor Ron McCallum was a premature baby in the 1940s. He completed his studies by recording people reading his textbooks aloud onto cassettes...

20th Anniversary Collection: Brolga the 'kangaroo mum'

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Aged 17, Chris 'Brolga' Barns was meant to be the 'bird guy' at a new zoo in Broome. A cough in his keeper's house alerted him to a kangaroo joey cal...

20th Anniversary Collection: Stan Grant on what his father taught him

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The veteran Wiradjuri journalist spent his first year living in the wreck of a Model T Ford on a NSW mission. He has reported from China and North Ko...

Conversations Live podcast extra: Bruce McAvaney

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah and Richard give you a sneak peek behind the scenes of the Conversations Live Tour, Adelaide edition.Legendary sports broadcaster, Bruce McAvan...

Conversations Live podcast extra: Gill Hicks

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah and Richard give you a sneak peek behind the scenes of the Conversations Live Tour, Adelaide edition.London Bombing survivor, Gill Hicks was on...

20th Anniversary Collection: Surviving my dad's arrest and learning to thrive

12 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Longtime TV casting agent, Kirsty de Vallance was 16 when Police searched the house and arrested her father on serious drugs charges. Throughout her ...

20th Anniversary Collection: The comic genius of Jennifer Saunders

10 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The co-creator of Absolutely Fabulous says her remarkable career as one of the world's funniest women is all down to a series of happy accidents. Wh...

20th Anniversary Collection: Judy Sharp and the remarkable rise of Laser Beak Man

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Judy Sharp was told by doctors that her son would never communicate or learn to love, she refused to believe it and set about to secure a brilli...

20th Anniversary Collection: How power and fear play out in the dentist's chair

06 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sharonne Zaks is not your average dentist. After treating a patient named Anna, Sharonne saw the power relationship with her patients differently. Sh...

20th Anniversary Collection: A lion named Christian, and the men who loved him

05 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the swinging '60s, Anthony 'Ace' Bourke and John Rendall bought a lion cub from a luxury department store. They eventually released him to his nat...

20th Anniversary Collection: Bryan Brown’s ticket from Bankstown to Palm Beach

04 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bryan Brown has played more than 80 roles on stage and screen. Raised in working-class Sydney, his talent, hard work, and unmistakable presence have ...

20th Anniversary Collection: the story of the unwitting woman behind cell research and 'immortality'

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Henrietta Lacks was the first human being that we know of to get close enough to 'immortality' to touch it. She died more than 50 years ago but her c...

Wild — Story Collection

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Adventurous spirits take us way out into the world's wild places — stories from across 20 years of Conversations. Travel high in the mountains wit...

Teachers — Story Collection

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Memories, motivation and life lessons from those at the front of the classroom - stories from across 20 years of Conversations.Teachers share storie...

Digging Up Mum and Dad — Story Compilation

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The secret lives of parents — stories from across 20 years of Conversations.Espionage, Hollywood scandal, a second family, daring wartime missions...

A Feast of Cooks — Story Collection

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our chefs and cooks and the food that made them — stories from across 20 years of Conversations.Unforgettable sensory moments from childhood are b...

Maximum McInnes

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A collection of some of the best moments from actor and writer William McInnes — celebrating 20 years of Conversations. The voice of actor William...

Shipwrecked and alone: surviving the Blythe Star

31 Jul 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...

Crushing on Aladdin and Nigella Lawson — how Daniel learnt to love himself

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Writer and journalist Daniel Nour on the pressures of his vivacious Egyptian-Australian family, and 'inviting people in' instead of 'coming out'.Dani...

The walking nun — Sister Clare Nolan on entering the convent and saving lives

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sister Clare Nolan was the head of nursing at St Vincent's Hospital when the HIV/AIDS epidemic reached Australia. She met with politicians, brothel w...

Encore: What does a 'disaster specialist' actually do and how do they survive?

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When there's a plane crash, a bomb blast, a flood or a pandemic, Lucy Easthope's phone starts ringing. This is how she stays cheerful and trusts her ...

Miss Australia, gangland girlfriend, counsellor and criminal: Felicia Djamirze's story

24 Jul 2025

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...

A Dad's mission to save his daughter, and conquer cancer

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Dun left school at 17 to join the Australian navy as a submariner and later finished his high school certificate as an adult attending TAFE at n...

Teaching Nina Simone how to love me: a daughter's story

22 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Singer Lisa Simone is the only person in the world who can call Nina Simone 'mommy'. Lisa was the beneficiary of Nina's incredible talent and her aff...

Encore: The secret world of servos after dark

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

David Goodwin spent years working the graveyard shift at his local service station in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. The grungy work quickly took ov...

Dr Rangan Chatterjee on health and healing in a hectic world

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a boy, Dr Rangan Chatterjee saw his dad work day and night as a doctor before succumbing to an auto-immune disease. After his father's death in 20...

The hidden corners of Emma's Hong Kong — fishing villages, beaches and ancestral graveyards

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Novelist Emma Pei Yin ran away from Hong Kong as a teenager to start fresh in Australia. But she found herself repeatedly drawn back home whenever sh...

AFL star Zach Tuohy on his silent struggles as a young father and life after footy

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Zach was still a teen when he was scouted by the AFL in Ireland, beginning a great adventure in Australia, where he fell in love and unexpectedly bec...

Encore: Janty Blair is the BMW of standup comics

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After a lifetime of nursing and midwifery, Janty Blair discovered her funny bone in her late 50s, following a serendipitous Bumble date (R).Janty's f...

Leah Purcell's meteoric rise, from the Murgon meatworks to centre stage

10 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Leah Purcell grew up in a small town caring for her mum Florence. Her options after graduation were nursing or working at the meatworks. But after a ...

How a boy from Balmain made caring cool

09 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bundjalung man, Jack Manning Bancroft's scholarship to a prestigious Sydney University college showed him a rarefied world that shocked him, and he u...

A family secret unearths connection to country

08 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Yvonne Orley grew up on Aboriginal missions in NSW as the child of the matron and manager.  But it turned out that Yvonne had much deeper connection...

Encore: Love, jail, Jesus, and pubs — a tangled tale of four very different parents

04 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lech Blaine with the strange true story of his childhood, shaped by love, religious zealotry, and four wildly different parents. CW: descriptions of ...

When a sea change collides with messy midlife

03 Jul 2025

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...

Hannah vs Disney, Lizzo and Beyonce

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hannah Diviney made history in 2022 when she became the first person with a disability to film a sex scene for Australian television. Then she went v...

Purity, hypnosis and hiding — how a gay teen survived Opus Dei

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hollywood actor Tim Pocock was tricked by his dying, devout mother into undergoing gay conversion therapy. After she died, Tim finally learned how to...

Encore: my three fathers

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

American novelist Ann Patchett reflects on Frank, Mike and Darrell, the men who made her, going a year without shopping and her power to make herself...

Inside the six-day siege of the Iranian Embassy in London

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In April 1980, a group of armed men invaded the Iranian Embassy in London, taking hostages, and issuing demands in the name of a cause almost no one ...

Mass murder, cannibalism and insanity — inside Mao's cultural revolution

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

China's cultural revolution was murderously violent and culturally devastating; millions of people, artefacts and ideas went up in smoke. So what's f...

How I became a brainwashed cult bride

24 Jun 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...

Encore: the charming Italian narcissist

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Kerstin Pilz found out that her charming husband Gianni had been cheating on her while he was dying and she was taking care of him, she had to d...

Mr. Finch — deathworker in the tapestry of life

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Author Katia Ariel tells the story of Ephraim Finch, a man synonymous with death in the Melbourne Jewish community. He started life as Geoffrey Willi...

The mind f**k of pain — retraining your system to tackle chronic pain

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Lorimer Moseley is neuroscientist, who specialises in the complexities and mind-boggling nature of pain - what it is, why it exists, how it...

When Peter Greste became the story

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been a decade since Australian journalist Peter Greste became a global news story, spending 400 days imprisoned in Egypt. But he still misses ...

Encore: When success, a big house and a loving family aren't enough

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when a man can't stop his drive and desire for more? Author Andrew O'Hagan dissects the pitfalls of more money, more success and more ap...

Actor and Hollywood It Girl Ione Skye on surrendering her Rock 'n' Roll past and forgiving herself

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Gen X actor on making peace with her absent father, the ghosts of her Hollywood past and nursing Anthony Kiedis through his drug addiction while ...

Our post-American future — what will the new world order look like?

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Defence analyst Hugh White says Australian leaders are in denial about how dramatically the world has changed, and need to get a grip on the deep, tr...

The pyromaniac kid who made barbecue his life

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a child, chef Graeme Stockdale was embarrassed by the smell of sauerkraut and pickles that would trail him from his Polish and German grandparents...

Encore: Hormones and mental health with Dr Jayashri Kulkarni

06 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Jayashri Kulkarni on her Indian-Australian upbringing and her groundbreaking research into women's hormones and mental health (R)Jayashri Kulkarni...

Part TWO: Locked up in China — Cheng Lei on cell mates, singing and survival

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Cheng Lei's years in detention in China, on trumped-up espionage charges, go from cruel and isolating, to absurd and romantic when she gets moved int...

Part ONE: Locked up in China — Cheng Lei on state paranoia and staying sane in isolation

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When journalist Cheng Lei was detained by Chinese state security agents, she thought would be freed within the week. Instead, she was held on absurd ...

Depersonalisation — when Nathan lost his sense of self and nothing felt real

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2008 Nathan Dunne was night swimming in Hampstead Heath in the middle of winter when a psychological catastrophe struck him. He felt his sense of ...

Encore: A home filled with music — raising the Kanneh-Masons

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason on what it takes to keep up with her seven children — all of them gifted classical musicians (R).Kadiatu is a former English ...

Why Colm Toibin ran away with the circus — to Barcelona, Brooklyn and beyond

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Irish novelist has always been open to where life can unexpectedly take him, and the excitement that comes with that kind of freedom.Colm Toibin'...

Hilde Hinton's home for the temporarily defeated

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Hilde Hinton was on the cusp of adolescence, her mother died. For years she protected her younger siblings from the truth about their mum.Despit...

The secret life of Scarlett, the octopus

27 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Alex Schnell was around 5 years old, playing in rock pools around Clovelly beach in Sydney, she had an alien encounter. The creature in the sha...

Encore: How Sean Sweeney found his deaf heart

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sean Sweeney on the complications and joys of growing up as a a hearing child in a deaf family, using Auslan, a distinctively Australian sign languag...

The miserable lives and golden guns of tyrants, dictators and despots

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Marcel Dirsus is fascinated by the treadmill of tyranny: how dictators gain power, how they stay there and how they fall. This is his blueprint for b...

Claire Keegan on bravery, writing and the single life

21 May 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...

Peter Godwin's complicated loves, great losses and occasional wars

20 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The writer had a complex relationship with his mother, whose professional reputation built a wall between them, but also saved his life more than onc...

Treating anorexia by nourishing the heart

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Psychiatrist Warren Ward treats patients who are severely ill with eating disorders. Understanding the mystery of human nature has driven him since h...