The story of the melancholy spy
02 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When a devastating injury ended Jack Beaumont's career as a jet fighter pilot, he decided to become...
The psychedelic revolution — how MDMA mended Rebecca's mind
30 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
While struggling with PTSD, social researcher Rebecca Huntley chose an unconventional and undergrou...
Smuggled out of Wewak — Carolyn's dramatic escape from Papua New Guinea
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Carolyn Blacklock's passport was confiscated from her in a foreign country she was faced with ...
When the pirate got paid on the island of Corfu
28 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kári Gíslason was 18 when he met a mysterious stranger called 'the Pirate' on the Greek island of...
The spark that saw Andy become solar-powered
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Andy McCarthy found passion for solar power as a high school dropout. He began one of Australia's b...
The sprawling history of the human soul — part two
26 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this two-part series, historian Paul Ham traces how our definition and understanding of the huma...
The trailblazing papergirl, lawyer and playwright
23 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Suzie Miller's frugal and free range St Kilda childhood taught her to question almost everything. S...
My aunt was smuggled to Tashkent by Stalin
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Helen Vatsikopoulos' family never spoke about what happened to her aunt, Aspasia after the Greek Ci...
Heavenly beings: the icon paintings of Michael Galovic
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artist Michael Galovic had been painting mysterious and mystical icons for decades before he truly ...
Dave Gleeson needs a damn good lie down
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Gleeson is known for his blistering performances in The Screaming Jets and The Angels, but he...
The sprawling history of the human soul — part one
19 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this two-part series, historian Paul Ham traces how our definition and understanding of the huma...
The Natural Horseman
16 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
People travel from all over the world to learn about horses from Ken Faulkner. But after a life-thr...
Love, death and walking : writer Ailsa Piper
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2014, Ailsa Piper's husband's unexpected death cast her adrift in a sea of grief. Then bit by bi...
The farm that Carol built
14 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Carol Perry’s communal farm there’s ‘no loneliness, and no mortgages’. It’s a long way...
Mummy bundles, fossils and DNA
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kim McKay is the Director and CEO of The Australian Museum, responsible for 22 million objects that...
'More than cheesecake' — humanity's shared musical history
12 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Like tracing the cultural history of breathing or love, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly when, ho...
Conversations Gold: The silver medal that changed Laurie Lawrence
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As a child, the superstar swim coach lived with a chronic lung condition, and had part of a lung re...
Conversations Gold: Jana Pittman's turning point
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jana Pittman became one of Australia's most famous athletes as a young woman. Then at age 30, she ...
Conversations Gold: Paralympian Christie Dawes is super/normal
05 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Tokyo Paralympics were Christie's seventh as a wheelchair racing competitor, but Christie almos...
Conversations Gold: The life of Anna Meares
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Anna's stellar cycling career saw her smash Australian Olympic records and become the World Champio...
Conversations Gold: Lisa Curry on winning gold and losing Jaimi
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Swimmer and entrepreneur Lisa Curry's life has been full of highs and lows both in and out of the p...
Conversations Gold: Patrick Johnson's golden run
29 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How a boy who grew up on a fishing trawler became the first man in Australia to run 100 metres in u...
Bruce McAvaney — what a legend, what a champion
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bruce McAvaney is the voice of Australian sport, with a commentating style built on his relentless ...
Louise Kennedy on Belfast, bombs and a disastrous pav
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Louise Kennedy grew up at the height of The Troubles, just outside of Belfast, where violenc...
It's 'all sweet' for Tony Armstrong
24 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tony Armstrong felt like a failure when his AFL career ended. But he found his feet again, falling ...
Lele's home under the Morning Star
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Forced to flee West Papua, Lele's family wandered for years before coming to Australia. When they e...
Tidying up the crematorium
22 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When writer Lily Brett went to visit Auschwitz, the death camp both her parents had survived, she c...
PRESENTS — I Was Actually There | The Boxing Day tsunami 2004
20 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
I Was Actually There is a new ABC podcast featuring gripping stories told by people who witnessed h...
The many magnificent, mysterious faces of Monte Punshon
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Monte Punshon was 103 years old when she was crowned the world's oldest lesbian, but that wasn't ho...
Writer Winnie Dunn on identity and the meaning of homecoming
18 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Winnie Dunn is the General Manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement. Here she tells the story of how ...
The power and determination of Nas Campanella
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nas Campanella was six months old when she lost her sight. She fell in love with the radio and au...
The megadeath of megafauna
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Aaron Camens studies the fossilised skeletons, footprints and soft tissue left behind by strange...
Sketchbooks, ghosts and a lost sister with Artist Michael Kelly
15 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artist Michael Kelly's younger sister was born with intellectual disabilities in the 1950s, and wen...
The BMW of standup comics
12 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Janty Blair is a Butchulla, Mununjhali and Woppaburra woman who, after a lifetime of nursing and mi...
The tin hut that's still standing
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr John Paterson grew up in a tin hut in rural Darwin. He helped hold it down during Cyclone Tracy ...
Bindi — Dinner with Marlon Brando, didgeridoo at the Taj Mahal and always looking forward
10 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When his elders named him Bindi, David Hudson had no idea his future would involve performing with ...
Nardi Simpson on Crocodile Country
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Yuwaalaraay writer, storyteller and performer, Nardi Simpson of the Stiff Gins talks about her lif...
Ken Wyatt - the Noongar boy who made history
08 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ken Wyatt was born at Roelands Mission in outback WA, where his mother had been taken as a small gi...
Surviving Pinochet, living for art
05 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Paula Quintela was seven years old when she witnessed Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’etat in Chile. ...
Married at the Wayside Chapel
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Playwright Alana Valentine on the story of the radical minister, Ted Noffs, who married thousands o...
Beyond the hills and into the mountains
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Since she was a child, Michelle Johnston has tried to satisfy her insatiable curiosity about the wo...
Finding home on the Tooraweenah Aerodrome
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Pitts needed to find peace after a hard life in the rugby and boxing worlds. So he went back t...
Risking everything
01 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For more than 20 years, Dominic Gordon cycled through the same self-destructive behaviours - steali...
Disaster specialist Lucy Easthope
28 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When there's a plane crash, a bomb blast, a flood or a pandemic, Lucy Easthope's phone starts ringi...
Ben Lee: chutzpah mystic, Bondi rock prodigy, Noise Addict
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Lee was a teen rock prodigy by the time he was 14. He then began decades of making music, Holly...
The ferryman from life to death
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After Richard Gosling's young daughter survived horrific injuries and open heart surgery, he became...
Life and death in the holy city
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
John Lyons, the ABC's Global Affairs Editor, reflects on the Israel-Gaza war, drawing on his backgr...
Like oil and water
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A change of heart and a great romance drove Dr Paul Hardisty to walk away from the oil industry and...
Pack ice, seal fat and the big slide: Tim and Ernest's incredible journey
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Jarvis takes you on his adventures, following in the footsteps of explorer Ernest Shackleton, w...
How Leila saw birds anew
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Leila Jeffreys was a young photographer when she built a tiny studio specifically for birds. She th...
Avani Dias on the rise of Narendra Modi
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Avani Dias was working as the South Asia Correspondent for the ABC when she was forced out of India...
The beauty of the brain
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Neurosurgeon Brindha Shivalingam says it is a privilege to go into someone’s brain and repair the...
Michael Theo's childhood dream
17 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Theo found unexpected fame on 'Love on the Spectrum'. Now he's realised a childhood dream: ...
The strange true tale of the tattooed arm regurgitated by a shark
14 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Phil Roope with a true crime saga from 1930s Sydney involving a tiger shark, a severed arm, a Glads...
The girl who turned her head away
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Juliana Nkrumah survived ill treatment at the hands of her stepmother, growing up in Ghana, and got...
Free will, liberty and Aristotle in the animal kingdom
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we all feel "funny" about zoos? And should we? Dr Jenny Gray is the CEO of Zoos Victoria, an...
Michael Mosley’s legacy: empowering science for the everyday
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The late Michael Mosley on his investigations into the complicated and fascinating world of our gut...
The 700-room nightmare
10 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For a thousand years, Colditz Castle has sat on the edge of a cliff in eastern Germany. It has been...
Tabletop, Spank, and Spycraft
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Thriller writer Louise Doughty on spycraft, trench coats and her Romany roots
The charming Italian narcissist
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Kerstin Pilz discovered that her charming husband Gianni had been cheating on her while he was...
Nick Bryant's America: polarised forever
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Nick Bryant has had three years away from his beloved America, completely reassessing hi...
Psyche, the curious and brave goddess of the soul
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Forsyth on the otherworldly myth of Eros and Psyche, a story at the root of many fairy tales f...
The secret psychosis of a first-time mother
03 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When psychologist Ariane Beeston started having delusions after the birth of her son, and hallucina...
Japanese gangsters: the secrets of the Yakuza
31 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jake Adelstein's dogged reporting on Japan's organised crime earned him a nemesis in Tadamasa Goto,...
Writer Bonnie Garmus on rejection, writing and success in your 60s
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Bonnie Garmus tried to sell her first novel, it was rejected 98 times. Then at 66, she wrote a...
David Wengrow: everything we know about the human story is wrong
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Archaeologist David Wengrow has discovered an entirely new way to think about the history of humani...
Matt Hall's life at supersonic speed
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Hall made his first solo flight at 15 years old and has been addicted to life in the air ever ...
The forgotten treasures of desert dwellers
27 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Archaeologist Julien Cooper digs up the remote deserts of Sudan and Egypt, finding forgotten artefa...
Billy Bragg — the boy from Barking
24 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Billy Bragg grew up in working-class Barking, east of London. The expected path was to go from scho...
How Rafael Bonachela let his inner showgirl out with Kylie Minogue
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rafael Bonachela was born in the dying years of Franco’s Spain, into a patriarchal culture that d...
The power of the extra dad
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Dugald Jellie was growing up in country Victoria, it was dads — his own and his friends' ...
Bronnie and the jaws of life
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Firie Bronnie Mackintosh attends emergencies to cut people out of crushed cars and rescue them from...
Riding for a fall - a portrait of male drive
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a man can't stop his drive and desire for more? Author Andrew O'Hagan dissects th...
The velveteen rabbit at the end of the world
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the decades before Ruth Shaw became a bookseller in New Zealand's Fiordland, she lived the incr...
A Latvian Fairytale
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artist Brigita Ozolins grew up hearing about the magic of her mother's home country, Latvia. It was...
Naomi and the smudge of luminous stars
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Astrophysicist Naomi McClure-Griffiths was making an atlas of our galaxy when she discovered an ent...
Sean Fong dominating life on the jiu-jitsu mat
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sean Fong is a para world champion in jiu-jitsu. The 'gentle' martial art has allowed Sean to sha...
The highs and lows of the ALP
13 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From its surprising successes to its dismal failures, historian Frank Bongiorno takes you through t...
Troy Cassar-Daley: the boy from Halfway Creek
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Troy Cassar-Daley grew up walking a tightrope between two worlds after his mum and dad broke up whe...
Troy Cassar-Daley: the boy from Halfway Creek
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Troy Cassar-Daley grew up walking a tightrope between two worlds after his mum and dad broke up whe...
When Bonnie just kept paddling
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Bonnie Hancock stumbled on a book in her local library, she got a gut feeling that refused to ...
Uncovering Tasmania's gruesome past
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Cassandra Pybus exposes the secret trade of the skeletal remains of the first people of Tasmania. C...
Fantastic and fascinating fungi
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fungi have given us many gifts, from penicillin to food, but they can also be quite scary. Dr Aliso...
Chris Haywood's life in character
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Australian actor looks back at his riotous life on camera, from Newsfront to Muriel's Wedding
The soup bar saving lives
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hana Assafiri was a child bride in her teens when she fought her way free of her violent husband. T...
How our brains use autocorrect
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Margaret Moore is fascinated by our most mysterious organ - the brain. By looking at stroke surv...
Nick Cave's broken-hearted optimism
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Cave has lived through addiction, love and unthinkable loss. His experiences have changed how...
Terry's long goodbye
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Keri Kitay with the story of her devoted, outgoing mum Terry, who was diagnosed with early-onset Al...
Learning to read with Manisha Gazula
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How headmistress Manisha Gazula radically (and controversially) transformed the literacy, and life,...
Mother Courage
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Colum McCann with the story of Diane Foley, whose son James was murdered by the Islamic Stat...
ANZAC Day: letters from the front
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For 100 years Australia has been collecting tens and thousands of letters and diaries from deployed...
How Rhonda defied expectations
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Dr Rhonda Wilson was in year 10, she was told she should drop out of school and settle for bec...
Dr Sutapa Mukherjee on how to sleep well
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From muscle paralysis and sleepwalking, to the power of our subconscious, Dr Sutapa Mukherjee takes...
The creativity of language, storytelling and the great language recovery by Dr Ray Kelly Snr
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Ray Kelly Snr's grandfather was asked to translate "telephone" into Gumbayngirr, he responde...
Theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama on making peace and living in poetry
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pádraig Ó Tuama survived conversion therapy and exorcism as a young gay man in a church in Irelan...
Carly-Jay on dying, living, and learning to breathe
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Carly-Jay Metcalfe lives with cystic fibrosis, and has faced a double lung transplant, a rare cance...
A portrait of Peter Dutton
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Lech Blaine on Peter Dutton, the former policeman who became the leader of the Liberal Party...
The secret life of slime mould
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Scientist Tanya Latty on how a single-cell organism, slime mould, can solve complex problems in som...
Bettany Hughes takes you to the hottest sightseeing spots of the ancient world
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What was on the "must-see" lists for tourists in 200 BCE? From the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to th...
Finding a new version of family
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist Marina Kamenev on the changing story of our families in the 21st century (CW: discusses ...