Louise Milligan on justice, family and Ireland
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The investigative reporter reflects on her beloved Ringsend relatives and what drives her work hold...
Tom Gleeson: the hard man of Australian comedy
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Gleeson discovered and honed his distinctively caustic, laconic style of humour in some unlikel...
Jellyfish, sharks, grease and goggles: the life of a marathon swimmer
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dean Summers became a long-distance swimmer in midlife. Now he swims with sharks, jellyfish and bio...
The strange origins of our immense oceans
08 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For writer James Bradley, the ocean is the connective tissue that holds all of life on Earth togeth...
When the family circus comes to town
05 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From the rodeo to the dining room table, this is a collection of strange, funny and sombre stories ...
Glennon Doyle's untamed life
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Glennon was the world's most famous Christian mummy blogger when she fell wildly in love with U.S ...
Ayesha is not an escape artist
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ayesha Jehangir left her rural village to get a better education; she left Pakistan to explore Afgh...
How Bri Lee became an incendiary
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bri Lee on the brutal series of events which began her life as a writer tackling injustice in our c...
Family folklore: spies, secrets and suffering
01 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Phil Kafcaloudes grew up hearing stories about his legendary grandmother Olga, who became a spy fo...
Jane Fonda - writing her own script
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Fonda's big life has included Barbarella, activism, three husbands, workout videos and hair ep...
Oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros' love for Egyptian movies
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The oud virtuoso reflects on his path to the instrument, via a stamp collection and an Egyptian mov...
Crime scenes, lost wallabies, and coal-covered possums
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Best-selling crime writer Candice Fox has written 17 books. But she also has a second life hurtling...
The secret world of servos after dark
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David Goodwin spent years working the graveyard shift at his local service station in the outer sub...
Va — the sacred space between us
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Australia's first Pasifika university Professor, Jioji Ravulo was just a boy with the flu when a tr...
Anton Clifford-Motopi on finding his full name
22 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Anton Clifford-Motopi didn't see a face that looked like his until he became a father. And it would...
On birds, fathers and fairy possums
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ecologist David Lindenmayer first went into the Mountain Ash forests of Victoria in search of the t...
The death on the pitch which changed Andy's life
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Football tragic Andy Paschalidis was in his 50s when a dear friend and fellow player died during an...
Jarvis Cocker and the Pulp master plan
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The former frontman uncovered boxes from his adolescence in his attic, and he was amazed at his ear...
Sex, law, and life on Mars
18 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What would a human settlement on Mars look like? How would humans procreate in space? And what on e...
From Yale to psychiatric prison: the undoing of a brilliant friend
15 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Jonathan Rosen was a child he had a neighbourhood friend called Michael Laudor. Their very sim...
Zoya Patel on horses and homecoming
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Zoya Patel became besotted with horses as a child, she could never have imagined how they woul...
Shaun's giving heart and thousands of free meals
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Shaun Christie-David's parents came to Australia fleeing civil war in Sri Lanka. By age 13, he knew...
Rescuing the forgotten animals of war
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Marcus Fillinger has taken his military experience and wildlife rescue charity to Ukraine, where, a...
How Ross Gittins found his calling
11 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After a dispiriting stint as a Chartered Accountant, Ross found his perfect job: explaining the Aus...
Jodi Rodgers on loving our neurodiversity
08 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As a teenager, Jodi Rodgers got a job as a disability support worker and met a 6-year-old girl who ...
Death, with love and dignity
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Pauline McGrath's husband David was diagnosed with a brain tumour, she supported him as he cho...
Mary Beard's Roman Empire
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the wildest stories about Roman emperors involve playing the violin while watching the city...
Mic's way out of the woods
04 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Deeply ashamed of what he had done, Mic Whitty retreated into the Welsh wilderness for almost a yea...
Satu Vanksa on faith, love and music
04 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Satu Vanska grew up in Japan as the child of Lutheran Missionaries. When the family moved back to F...
Guilty feminist Deborah Frances-White
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The podcaster and comedian on her early life in Queensland, where she yearned to wear a coat; lesso...
Trent Dalton on life before Boy Swallows Universe
26 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As a child Trent was a quiet observer of the drama of his family and his neighbourhood. He became a...
Brigitte and the seven peaks
23 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Brigitte Muir's dream to climb the seven highest mountains on each of the seven continents took muc...
Our hormones and our minds: Jayashri Kulkarni
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Jayashri Kulkarni on her Indian-Australian upbringing and her groundbreaking research into women...
From ploughs to cash cows: a short history of economics
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Federal MP Andrew Leigh is a former professor of economics who is fascinated by how economics can c...
A matter of trust
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How Jeanne Ryckmans fell for a dashing Irish Professor who was far from what he appeared to be
The magnificent history of the Huxleys
19 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Historian Alison Bashford with the story of the Huxley family, who founded one of the great dynast...
The bookbinder's luck
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dominic Riley on how a chance encounter with a bookbinding monk named Brother Bede changed the cou...
Paul Kelly and the poetry
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Australia's storyteller in song on the poems he's loved since childhood, and how reading and learni...
The calligraphy of the outback: the art and life of David Rankin
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artist David Rankin on his turbulent early life as a the son of a bootmaker, his unexpected path in...
Crossing Australia with a camel named Delilah
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sophie Matterson spent five years preparing to cross the Australian continent with five camels she ...
Nick's land of lizards
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Clemann is one of Australia's leading lizard experts, but took an unconventional path into res...
A party girl gets sober
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Victoria Vanstone was just 13 years old when she had her first drink, and the booze quickly consume...
Sue's special classroom
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sue Lowry originally trained as an opera singer, but while living in London she fell in love with...
Richard E. Grant and his pocketful of happiness
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The actor on the late love of his life, his wife Joan Washington, and the final message she left hi...
Kira and the real King Kong
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Kira Westaway has been on a ten-year mission to solve the mystery of how, why and when a giant a...
The making of Nazeem Hussain
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nazeem Hussain honed his comedy in Melbourne's suburbs in the 1990s. After his father left the fami...
The toilet warrior
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Balla was on a business trip to India when he met two young men on a train. They invited him b...
She farms, she flies, she castrates bulls
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Ameliah Scott pilots herself around remote NSW to take care of animals and have a cuppa with the...
Trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling) and me
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As a teenager Adele Dumont started pulling out her hair from the root.Eventually she created a bald...
Jackie goes to Space Camp
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After feeling burnt out, Jackie Carpenter spontaneously applied for NASA's Space Camp. She was the ...
Julia Baird's search for grace
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Julia Baird has been sustained through hard times by acts of "moral beauty". In a world marked by d...
Robert Waldinger's good life
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Robert Waldinger on what it takes to live a happy life
Aunty Ruth Hegarty’s life of defiance
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The hardship, cruelty and loneliness of the mission system during the Great Depression didn't crush...
Roger Rogerson: crimes and punishment
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After a life of controversy, crime and corruption, disgraced former police detective Roger Rogerso...
Slaying monsters, immortality and sex: the wild ride of Gilgamesh
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Louise Pryke is one of few people in the world who can read the ancient language in which The Epic...
Deviating demographics with Liz Allen
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Liz Allen is a demographer fascinated by Australia's demographic trends. But her own story is a ...
Nancy's muster dog, Mate
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nancy Withers has been breeding and training kelpies for 50 years, but one dog stands out from the ...
The nudist, the vegetarian vicar and Karl Marx's daughter
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
These are just some of the remarkable and quirky people who helped write the Oxford English Diction...
Jane Perlez's view from Beijing
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At 19 years old Jane Perlez visited China in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. She would retur...
Off-road in the roaring twenties
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1927 Francis Birtles set off on a grand adventure from London to Melbourne, through murderous mo...
Chess master Irina Berezina’s gambit
15 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
International Chess Master and champion Irina Berezina credits her incredible chess-trained mind wi...
Costa Georgiadis — Heart and Soil
24 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Costa is the friendly face of Gardening Australia, a devotee of composting, keeping chickens and d...
Best of 2023 - Dean Laws
08 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dean Laws was in his 50s when doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease. For a time, he was devas...
Best of 2023 - Karin Bäumler
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Some years ago, Karin Bäumler found herself in a fight for her life after being diagnosed with o...
Best of 2023 - Amar Singh
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Amar Singh's sense of belonging to Australia has only grown since he leant into his Sikh faith, gro...
Best of 2023 - Danny Estrin
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Voyager frontman Danny Estrin on his unconventional path from heavy metal to law and the Eurovis...
Best of 2023 - Deb Wallace
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Former top Detective Deb Wallace with ingenious and surprising stories from her working life smashi...
Sandy Mackinnon's never-ending adventures aboard Jack de Crow
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For 25 years Sandy wondered what became of the little yellow dinghy he left in Romania, after a mon...
Melissa Lucashenko and the story of Edenglassie
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Lucashenko was a motorcycle detailer, a house painter, a prison advocate, and a game show c...
William McInnes and his favourite Australianisms
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The actor and author thinks that nowhere in the world is the English language more poetic, colourfu...
Piecrust promises and broken hearts
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alecia Simmonds with tales from a time in Australia's legal history when the jilted and broken-hear...
The truth about Pax Romana
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Holland on the glories, bloodshed and barbarianism of the golden days of the Roman Empire
Lee Miller: surrealist photographer, war correspondent, and gourmet chef
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Antony Penrose grew up knowing little about his remarkable mother Lee Miller, who had studied with ...
Lucy's button shop
23 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lucy Godoroja deals in the business of buttons, and the stories each button carries with it from Bo...
Hayley's morbid curiosity
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
British-Australian journalist Hayley Campbell uncovers the secret society of the western world's de...
Pentridge Prison, Australia's bluestone hell
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Writer and journalist James Phelps takes you inside the bluestone walls and medieval-looking turret...
Jon Owen's radical love
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Owen on how he chose a life of 'intentional downward mobility' to help addicts, sex workers, an...
Catherine Martin: making Elvis and loving Baz
17 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How a fashion-loving misfit from Sydney took over Hollywood with husband Baz Luhrmann, winning more...
The ladder out of depression with psychiatrist Ian Hickie
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Ian Hickie has spent decades trying to understand clinical depression. Where does it com...
Prepared for anything
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brendan Watson took his Scouts promise very seriously as a young boy. He's leaned in to his pledge...
The rise of the Super Bilby
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ecologist Katherine Moseby is helping Australia's bilbies, quolls, and stick-nest rats evolve to be...
Mick and Juana: a love story
13 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mick O'Regan met his feisty, brilliant wife Jo for the first time on a work brigade in Nicaragua. T...
Wily cockatoos, bin chickens and spangled drongos
10 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Darryl Jones on the dramatic lives of Australia's city-dwelling native birds
How David got his sea legs
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When David Hannan was a young man, he fled university and took a detour to the wild coral coast of...
Kylie Moore-Gilbert's freedom fight
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kylie Moore-Gilbert spent two years inside the Iranian prison system, secretly communicating with ...
Richard Flanagan's chain of events
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Flanagan was forever changed as a young man, when he was trapped for hours and almost drow...
Ariadne and the Minotaur
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Kate Forsyth on how revisiting the story of a mythic Minotaur lurking in a labyrinth in Cr...
Running from the FBI: life in The Weather Underground
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Zayd Dohrn’s parents were militant left-wing revolutionaries, and he was born while they were liv...
Killer sponges of the vasty deep
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Merrick Ekins is Australia's leading expert in carnivorous sea sponges. Some sponges are secret ...
Bruce Englefield's devilish charm
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On a whim, Bruce Englefield bought a wildlife park in Tasmania and moved from across the other side...
Sandi Toksvig and the school of life
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Danish-British author and comedian on her father's laissez faire attitude to school, and how th...
How Stephen sang himself to life
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From homeless teen to operatic stardom: how a job at the David Jones food hall changed the trajecto...
Shanelle Dawson: the daughter's story
27 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2018, Shanelle Dawson's family were the subject of a hit true crime podcast which helped convict...
Pip Williams: from dyslexia to the Dictionary of Lost Words
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Pip Williams was diagnosed with dyslexia as a teenager. She grew up to write a novel inspired by th...
Penny Moodie's compulsive and compelling life
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Penny grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and developed habits to try to ward off impending d...
The hunt for deep sea bioluminescence (and a giant squid)
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Marine biologist Dr Edith Widder was inside a submersible searching for bioluminescence in the ocea...
The speech collector
23 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tony Wilson was always drawn to the world's great speeches. Then, without warning, he was called on...
Champion surfer Jodie Cooper on the breaks that made her
20 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How Jodie went from skateboarding in her home town of Albany to become a world surfing champion, ...
Penny's odyssey to Greece and family
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
An unexpected DNA test result sent Penny Mackieson on a mission across the other side of the world,...
The caving time lord
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Kira Westaway is a geochronologist who places modern and ancient humans in context by dating thi...