Conversations

Changing prisoners' minds with Vedic meditation at Rikers Island

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Joh Jarvis was a high-flying boss when grief from a terrible loss began to overwhelm her. She tried therapy, exercise and healthy eating. Then she fo...

A wild Bollywood adventure — from Sydney to Mumbai and back again

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Indian-Australian actor and playwright, Nicholas Brown on being cast as a villain, and what made him end his time in Mumbai for a different life back...

Aunty Ruth Hegarty’s life of defiance, faith and finding her voice

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The hardship, cruelty and loneliness of the mission system during the Great Depression didn't crush Aunty Ruth Hegarty's spirit. She found her voice,...

Arnhem Land to Everest — surviving worst case scenarios in the wilderness

15 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the unforgiving tropics of the Kokoda track to Mt Everest, wilderness guide Steve Ellis has made a career teaching bushcraft and survival skills...

I was a political prisoner in Myanmar — and I could never hate the Burmese

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Following the coup of 2021, Australian economist Sean Turnell received an email from a "secret friend", warning him he was being watched by Myanmar's...

Raising kids diffently and being generous with love: Writer Nikki Gemmell

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From Wollongong to London, via Alice Springs, this is writer Nikki Gemmell on her deeply romantic life, and how she defied expectations to become a f...

A Sri Lankan hotel, a Harlem nightclub and orgasm-induced amnesia — Dasha Ross' epic adventures

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dasha Ross' most epic adventures were chartered with her larger-than-life husband John Pinder, including the time they managed a beachside hotel in S...

Prostate cancer, testosterone and Tim Baker's masculinity

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When surf writer Tim Baker was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer, he had no idea how the hormones which saved his life would fundamentally chang...

Obsessive-compulsive disorder and how Penny loosened its anxiety-inducing grip

08 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Penny Moodie grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and developed habits to try to ward off impending doom. It turned out she had been living with...

Melbourne's seedy underbelly and the gangsters who run the joint

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

They're violent and scary, some of them are madmen and others are convicted killers, but the gangsters who control organised crime syndicates in Melb...

Play School's Noni Hazlehurst — Australia's TV mum

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Beloved Australian actor, Noni Hazlehurst looks back on her life on stage and screen.Noni Hazlehurst has been on Australian TV screens and theatres f...

How not to be a d***head with country music singer Kasey Chambers

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The country music star remembers a childhood spent roaming the Nullarbor Plain, and the number one lesson she learned from her father.Kasey Chambers ...

Embracing wilderness and wildness with Gina Chick

02 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Gina Chick, the winner of Alone Australia on her life as a creative, outrageous, nature-loving misfit who grew up to live through great depths of lo...

Shakespeare's stories aren't boring — we are teaching them wrong way

01 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Irish journalist and author, Fintan O'Toole on how the Victorians changed the meaning of Shakespeare's plays, and how we can bring them back to life....

How Tolstoy and Chekhov schooled George Saunders on life's great lessons

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Writer George Saunders on how famous short stories by writers like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Gogol are like miniature models of the world and ho...

The unexpected plot twist: how a solo hiker stayed alive after shattering her pelvis in Joshua Tree National Park

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Claire Nelson hadn't told anyone where she was going, and her phone lost signal shortly into her hike. As an experienced bushwalker, she never dreame...

The unexpected plot twist: the story of how suicide survivor Oceane, who became a beloved midwife

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At the age of 18, Oceane Campbell tried to take her own life. She survived and fought her way back into life, becoming a midwife and a mother of thre...

The unexpected plot twist: The story of Toni Jordan's lucky life

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Toni Jordan grew up working in a T.A.B. with her cyclonic mother, and going to the greyhound races. Then she grew up to become a best-selling noveli...

The unexpected plot twist: The tech nerd who changed course to help the homeless

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jon Owen's mum enrolled him in a computer science degree at University - expecting him to build a flourishing career; which he did. It just wasn't th...

The unexpected plot twist: From the David Jones food hall to Opera Australia

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After a stint being homeless and living in his car, Stephen Smith was working at David Jones Food Hall when one of his colleagues noticed his remarka...

An odyssey across Australia — how 11,000 sheep were walked from Victoria into the outback

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1882, thousands of sheep set off from a property in Western Victoria. Their destination was a huge station in the Northern Territory, land which a...

Antibiotic resistant superbugs and how to fight them

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Ian Henderson has spent his career searching for new treatments in the fight against antibiotic resistance superbugs

A life spent making — ‘Mr Millimetre’s’ memories with master maker Jeffrey Broadfield

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jeffrey Broadfield has made building his life. It has taken him around the world, and given him a place to belong.Jeffrey Broadfield is a master make...

Fish sperm sausages, and eyeball icecream: the Josh Niland story

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From using fish eyes in ice cream, and not wasting the liver, to creating recipes with fish sperm, chef Josh Niland on his mission to revolutionise h...

The architects of ancient Arabia – speaking to the sky

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The deserts of Saudi Arabia are still holding on to many ancient secrets, hidden inside burial tombs and mysterious monumental structures called must...

The epic highs and lows of Ji's life on the trampoline

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ji Wallace was at the top of his career as a gymnast and acrobat when a terrible injury and surprising diagnosis brought him back down to earth, temp...

Treating dementia — a new way of caring for the elderly

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Psychiatrist Duncan McKellar wrote the report that triggered the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. He has seen how care changes whe...

The man with the magnificent voice James Earl Jones, and his legacy including Star Wars and the Lion King

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The late James Earl Jones grew up with a stutter and hardly said a word for years. After an English teacher intervened, he grew up to become one of t...

Epic sharks — the ancient origins of the monsters of the sea

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From sharks with wheels of teeth, to gargantuan sharks like the megalodon, palaeontologist John Long has traced the long and storied history of these...

Words of love — writing stories of Aboriginal land

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Author and professor Anita Heiss on her parents' story of romance, and how she brings true history alive in her work.Anita Heiss is a Wiradjuri woman...

My brother's death — writing the story of a family's grief and loss

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, Gideon Haigh and his mother were the only two people who really knew what happened on Jaz's last night. This year, it all poured out.Gid...

Quitting alcohol – the story of how Seana got sober

05 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After a childhood spent trying to escape her father's booze-fuelled outbursts, Seana developed her own problem relationship with drinking. But by her...

How dogs think — and what they think of us

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dog behaviourist Laura Vissaritis uses science and psychology to better understand what our dogs really are telling us and how our behaviour influenc...

My Stolen Generations story: how Brenda was taken from her family, twice

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As a young child, chunks of Brenda Matthews' early memories were missing until her biological mother told her the truth of what happened. Together th...

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 a spy, in the French Secret Service.Jack Beaumont...

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 underground path to healing — MDMA therapy.Rebecca Huntle...

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 a scary reality that got wilder at every turnCarol...

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 Corfu. When he fled the island, he left behind a ...

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 biggest solar businesses, right in the heart of Vic...

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 human soul has transformed over thousands of years. Hu...

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. She grew up to become a trailblazing writer and law...

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 Civil War. She uncovered a story of secret evacuatio...

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 understood the theology behind what he was doing —...

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 grew up singing at Mass in Cardiff, with a mum ...

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 human soul has transformed over thousands of years. Hu...

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-threatening riding accident on his favourite horse, S...

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 bit, life called her back. Ailsa Piper is a writer ...

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 from the life her parents expected her to lead, a...

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 tell the history of the world (Content warning: ...

'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, how or why humans started making music. But composer...

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 removed. In 1956, a huge event held in his family's ...

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 found herself at a painful crossroads (R)

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 almost gave up marathons after the 2013 Boston Marathon...

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 Champion 11 times. Then to the surprise of many, she walk...

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 pool. But it was the death of her daughter, Jaimi, ...

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 under 10 seconds (R)

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 work ethic and genuine passion. But if he hadn't c...

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 violence was ever-present. When her family's pub was bomb...

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 upwards into a different life, calling footy match...

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 eventually received Australian citizenship and pass...

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 couldn't help but start tidying up the place where ...

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 history first-hand. Hear what it was like to be a p...

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 how she summed up her extraordinary life. Historian ...

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 family and writing brought her home to Tonga, and ...

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 audio books as a child, growing up to become one of ...

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, alien-like behemoths, to work out how they lived...

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 went into care. The family lost touch with her until ...

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 midwifery, discovered her funny bone in her late 50s...

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 and has taken care of it so it still stands today....

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 his didgeridoo at the Taj Mahal, or a role in a fi...

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 life, art and the meaning of country (R)

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 girl, after she was stolen from her family. More tha...

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. She broke up the darkness by becoming her country'...

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 of couples who weren’t accepted anywhere else, in...

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 world and the people in it. Most recently, her quest...

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 to the airstrip that his aviator grandfather made f...

Risking everything

01 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For more than 20 years, Dominic Gordon cycled through the same self-destructive behaviours - stealing, risky sexual encounters, vandalism and drug-us...

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 ringing. This is how she stays cheerful and trusts her ...

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, Hollywood fame, and a journey into alternative spiritua...

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 a funeral director, leaning into the emotional in...

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 background as former Middle East correspondent for The A...

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 the influence of his brilliant but violent father...

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, who tried valiantly to cross Antarctica from sea to...

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 then began taking heart-stopping images of budgies, ...

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 after her reporting fell foul of the Indian gover...

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 body's most vital organ. She didn’t expect to b...

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: to become an actor

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 Gladstone bag, smuggled cocaine, and a wronged man (CW:...

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 away with a warning from the Mugabe regime when s...

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, and an ethicist fascinated by concepts like liberty ...

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 health and the human microbiome (R)

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 a royal hunting lodge, a madhouse, and most famou...

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 dying, she had to decide what to do nextWhen Kers...

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 his ideas about the superpower and the wild, great A...

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 from Beauty and the Beast to Cinderella

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 hallucinating that he was a dragon, she had to learn how to...

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, one of the most powerful Yakuza bosses in the cou...

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 novel called Lessons in Chemistry, which sold fou...

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 humanity, from the origins of farming, cities, democracy...