Conversations
Episodes
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...
Ghost stories and executions in Iceland — when Hannah Kent and Agnes Magnusdottir became entwined
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When writer Hannah Kent first visited Iceland in 2003, she came across a gothic true story about Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman hanged in Iceland...
Heroin addiction, Ivan Milat's dentist, and beginning again
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Claude Robinson developed a heroin habit as a young man, and spent years in jail. In 2006 he began to turn his life around for good. (CW: description...
Situationships, risks and growing pains — Jemma Sbeg on surviving your 20s
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From relationships and loneliness, to indecision and burnout, Jemma Sbeg is your guide to navigating your 20s, and looking back on that decade with a...
Encore: Mt Druitt to Tonga, how Winnie embraced her cultural heritage
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Winnie Dunn was a teenager when the Chris Lilley character 'Jonah from Tonga' became a national joke and as a Tongan Australian the stereotype made h...
Jamila Rizvi’s one in a million brain tumour
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jamila’s craniopharyngioma had been growing for years, unbeknownst to her. In hindsight, it was her son who gave the first clue, when he stopped br...
Slapped by a whale's tail, and other animal adventures
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whale and dolphin researcher, Barry McGovern’s love of sea creatures started in Clare, Ireland, when as a child he met the county’s solitary, fri...
Adam Kay — the magic and misery of doctoring, comedy and fatherhood
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After a caesarean section on his labour ward went catastrophically wrong, Adam Kay took a radical inventory of his entire life. CW: traumatic childbi...
Briana, Max and Freddy: love, trains and mouth music
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Briana Blackett was a journalist in Qatar when she realised her baby son Max wasn't responding to his name. When Max and his little brother Freddy we...
Encore: breaking the silence around men's mental health
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonno Seidler with the story of his Dad Ray, a much-loved and successful doctor, who hid his private struggles from the world.Behind closed doors, ...
Learning from the mighty matriarchs of the animal kingdom
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Erna Walraven was one of the first female zookeepers to work at Sydney's Taronga Zoo in the 1980s. Despite practical jokes from her male colleagues, ...
Mawunyo's life in love, journalism and hip hop
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mawunyo Gbogbo was raised as a church-going African Australian girl in the sleepy mining town of Muswellbrook, before she grew up to become a hip-hop...
Inside the mind of a dog, and a pig named Habib
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Luke Hura has an innate ability to understand and communicate with animals, and for decades he's been training them for film, television and the stag...
Encore: The case of the unknown sailor
25 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2007, Jeremy Austin was asked by the Royal Australian Navy to help them identify the remains of an unknown sailor from World War II. Using the be...
Adam Liaw’s longing for food
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Masterchef graduate shares what he learned from his grandmother, who won the lottery in Malaysia when she was a 25-year-old widow with three chil...
Listening to a mountain to save workers trapped underground
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2023, Arnold Dix helped rescue 41 men trapped in a tunnel after it collapsed high in the Himalayas. As an engineer and tunnel expert, he was uniqu...
The physics and feeling of floating — why Angelica learnt to swim
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis grew up in Sydney, famous for its coastline and beachside existence. But for reasons beyond her control, she didn't learn...
Encore: Grief, loss and the healing power of the natural world
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013, Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth lost their beloved farm in Wales, it was where they'd lived for 20 years and raised their children.In the ...
The epic escape story of four ANZAC POWs — through the Italian Alps to freedom
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Writer and tour guide Simon Tancred on the little-known ANZAC story of how a group of POWs made a daring escape on foot to neutral Switzerland.Simon ...
Made in Burnie — Justin Heazlewood on swapping fame for his hometown
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Justin Heazlewood fled a complicated early life in Tasmania searching for fame as an artist on the mainland. Recently he moved back to his home town ...
From Manila to Sydney to the Archibald Prize — Artist Loribelle on finding family and love
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The artist Loribelle Spirovski on her unusual childhood in the Philippines, meeting her father for the first time at 7 years old, and making her way ...
Encore: The poker-playing cardiologist
11 Apr 2025
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...
Miles Franklin's secret life as a 'boy sober' undercover maid
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Kerrie Davies with the story of how novelist Miles Franklin went undercover as a maid for a year, in Sydney and Melbourne's wealthy houses...
The life-changing power of a choir - From Guyanese activist forming an Aboriginal Women’s choir
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Song propelled Morris Stuart from his early life shepherding sheep in British Guyana to an unlikely love story in London. In his retirement, he found...
The wisdom of an ancient Pencil Pine
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nature writer Andrew Darby on what he learned from his rambles through the wilds of Tasmania, communing with the world’s oldest surviving trees. In...
Encore: A daring escape from Vietnam to the halls of prestigious American universities
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anh Nguyen Austen's family fled Vietnam by sea in 1982, on a wooden boat bound for the Philippines. When a once-in-a-century storm struck in the Sout...
From street fighting petty criminal to portrait artist - How Vincent Fantauzzo's life was saved by love and painting
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When artist Vincent Fantauzzo was a boy he was a street-fighting petty criminal with dyslexia and a blazing talent for drawing. He escaped jail time,...
'Mistakes were made' — a live storytelling experience
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Rebecca Huntley, Rick Morton, Julia Zemiro and Sarah Kanowski bring you stories of human failure, misadventure and outright fiasco in a live storytel...
Two sisters, Dod and Brattle - the lesbian poet, and the evangelical Christian
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Josie McSkimming on growing up with her bohemian sister, the poet Dorothy Porter, and how their lives took off on wildly diverging paths as they grew...
Encore: Doctor Koppe — PTSD and me
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hilton Koppe was a beloved country GP for 30 years before an unexpected health crisis of his own forced him to reassess everything (R)Hilton Koppe gr...
Shaking — escaping the grip of a lifelong tremor
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist and author Sonya Voumard on the rare neurological condition that has stalked her since a family tragedy during her childhood.Sonya Voumard...
Loneliness — it's not only you
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Loneliness is a universal experience, for each of us at some point in our lives. Journalist Ros Thomas travelled the world to investigate, and find t...
The fearless Kate McClymont — weathering death threats and court cases for work
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The chief investigative reporter on her work exposing criminals and corruption, including former politician, Eddie Obeid and financial fraudster, Mel...
Encore: Krystyna Duszniak and Poland's lost histories
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As a young woman, Krystyna thought her father had taught her everything about Poland’s history, but she didn’t know that what he’d left out wou...
Life on the lam — how Peter escaped from under his fugitive father's shadow
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Norris's father was a notorious bank robber who lived life on the run, dragging his boy across the country with him, until Peter refused to go ...
Martha, baby Michael and the police officer who cried
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Martha Jabour was a young mum when her baby son Michael died suddenly. In the thick of her grief, she worried for the devastated young police officer...
Undercover hitmen, shady drug deals and covert surveillance — life as a top cop
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While working as an undercover cop, Nick Kaldas played a drug baron in the market for vast quantities of hemp oil, tracked a fugitive with a penchant...
Encore: Andy Paschalidis on the death on the football pitch which changed everything
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Football tragic Andy Paschalidis was in his 50s when a dear friend and fellow player died during an over-35s soccer game. The tragedy inspired him to...
Tim Winton on staying alive, in extremis
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australian writer Tim Winton on the stories which inspired his latest novel, 'Juice', a story of determination, survival, and the limits of the human...
Love, death and duels — Marie Curie's radioactive life
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Polish-French physicist and chemist is famous for discovering radium, but Marie Curie was more than her accomplishments. From 'the flying univers...
Could you live forever? The neuroscience behind brain preservation, consciousness and death
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Would you want to live for longer? Forever? Have your mind preserved and uploaded into something non-human? And is it even possible? Neuroscientist D...
A life in the law, on the Glitter Strip
10 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gold Coast lawyer Chris Nyst on his 45 years in criminal law, defending career criminals, going head to head with corrupt police, heroin addicts and ...
Encore: A restaurant named Parwana — Afghan treasure in Adelaide
07 Mar 2025
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...
How Geraldine Brooks learned how to live again through grief
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Geraldine Brooks on love, grief and letting go after her husband died in a shocking and unexpected way.In 2019, Australian writer Geraldine Br...
Singing for her life: Camille O'Sullivan on Ireland and her dearly departed friends
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It took a catastrophic car accident for the singer and actress to leave a decorated career in architecture and focus on her artistic ambitions, inclu...
Finding my dad, and myself — unravelling a family's secret
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lindsey Fidler’s quest to find her biological father started with jazz and an American Air Force Base. It ended with a trip to the U.S. through a d...
Encore: Let them ring — Paul Livingston on making a great big noise
28 Feb 2025
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...
Transforming trauma with Dr Gabor Maté
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The renowned physician discusses the role of trauma in our lives, showing up as addiction, chronic disease and mental illness — and how recognising...
My Moroccan matrescence
26 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Nadia Mahjouri travelled to Marrakech with her four-month-old baby to find her long lost father, she also underwent the process of matrescence ...
Gus Worland on the men who made him and Australia's male suicide epidemic
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Two of the most important men to Gus Worland departed his life in shocking and unexpected ways. Gus' grief led him to dig deeper into what it means t...
Encore: Brigitte and the seven peaks
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Brigitte Muir's dream to climb the seven highest mountains on each of the seven continents took much longer and cost her more than she expected, but ...
David Whyte on writing poetry the world loves
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For poet David Whyte, the power of poetry lies in its unmatched ability to meditate and focus on what's right in front of us -- whether it's a mounta...
Translating adolescence and speaking Teenage Girl
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Dannielle Miller became a teacher, she was given the classes no one else could handle. She was given a whistle on her first day, to call for hel...
The Bark Petitions — how Yolngu tradition changed democracy
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Historian, Professor Clare Wright tells the story of a formative moment — before the Mabo decision — in Australia’s democracy that you may not ...
Encore: the life of songwriter Jimmy Webb
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb on how growing up as the child of an Oklahoma preacher opened up a door to music, and inspired his songwriting (R)Jimmy ...
Surviving bombs and starvation on a Mediterranean island paradise
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Linda Peek's mother Margaret died, Linda collected the scraps of handwritten notes strewn around the home and put together Margaret's remarkable...
How tiny crystals reveal the secret history (and future) of volcanic eruptions
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Volcanologist Teresa Ubide opens volcanoes up from the outside, like a doll's house, searching for tiny crystal balls to help her predict when the ne...
Birtles, Brown and Bean: Warren's madcap world tour, in a vintage car
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Warren Brown drove through 80 countries in searing heat and pouring rain in a vintage Bean car to recreate the 1927 world tour of Australian motorist...
Encore: The making of Nazeem Hussain
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nazeem Hussain honed his comedy in Melbourne's suburbs in the 1990s. After his father left the family, his fearless mother taught Nazeem how to use h...
Drug bazaars, hitmen and hackers — why Eileen went deep into the dark web
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lawyer turned journalist Eileen Ormsby on her journey deeper and deeper into the internet's 'evil twin', where, under the cloak of anonymity, people ...
The family secret that inspired 'The Teacher's Pet'
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Hedley Thomas grew up knowing that his grandmother Gladys had vanished in the sea off Sydney in the 1950s when she was just 35 years old. ...
Lucinda Light on MAFS, living with ADHD, and her search for love
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lucinda Light was running a speed dating company in Byron Bay when she auditioned for 'Married At First Sight'. While on the show, she became a huge ...
Encore: The Toilet Warrior's origin story
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Balla was on a business trip to India when he met two young men on a train. They invited him back to see their home, one of the world's biggest ...
The spy who kept secrets for the self-made man
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Belinda Probert knew her father as an English war hero named Bill. What she didn't know, was that he was born Roy and that his spying did not end whe...
Dressing drag queens in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A chance find at age 14 at Flinders Street Station led Tim Chappel to a life of silver lamé, sequins, girdles, and an Oscar. Costume designer, Tim ...
Singing as 'sweet relief' — Meg Washington on stuttering, spirituality and song
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The musician reflects on the epic evolution of her singing from practical childhood speech therapy to sacred musical fluency.Meg Washington was born ...
Encore: From Yugoslavia to Australia — Jelena Dokic on tennis and the truth
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jelena Dokic on the trauma and violence which underscored her extraordinary life in tennis, and how she worked to change her own story(CW: discussion...