Conversations
byABC Australia
SocietyCultureRelationships
Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met. Journey into their world, joining them on epic adventures to unfamiliar places, back in time to wild moments of history, and into their deepest memories, to be moved by personal stories of resilience and redemption. Hosted by Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski, Conversations is the ABC's most popular long-form interview program. Every day we explore the vast tapestry of human experience, weaving together narratives from history, science, art, and personal storytelling. Conversations Live is coming to the stage! Join Sarah Kanowski and...
Episodes(40 episodes)
The secret obsession of a Supreme Court Justice
For 45 years, George Palmer harboured a secret. He spent every spare moment composing classical music, and then shoving his scores in his bottom drawer. Until one day, almost by pure chance, that music saw the light of day.As a young man, George had dreams of becoming a renowned classical music composer, but when he walked into university, he didn't feel like he belonged in the music department.George left after his first week, and followed a school friend into the law department.At first, George was not inspired by the law, but...
Published: May 13, 2026Duration: 53m 42s
Encore: How to sleep well and what can get in the way
From muscle paralysis and sleepwalking, to the power of our subconscious, Dr Sutapa Mukherjee takes you into the secret world of sleep.Dr Sutapa Mukherjee is a sleep specialist fascinated by how the time we spend awake is built on the hours we spend horizontal, and totally withdrawn from the world. She trained initially as a respiratory specialist, but moved into sleep research when she realised how little was known about what happens to us when our conscious mind switches off at night. Sutapa helps people to overcome sleep disorders, like insomnia, sleepwalking an...
Published: May 12, 2026Duration: 48m 0s
Moana Hope on a life spent caring for others and re-learning how to love
Former AFLW star Moana Hope has spent her life caring for others, including her dying father and her beloved sister Vinny, who has an intellectual disability. It wasn't until Mo was in her 30s that she realised she needed to learn how to love herself.Content Warning: this episode of Conversations contains discussion of childhood abuse, domestic violence and suicidal ideation.Moana Hope grew up with 13 siblings in a two-bedroom housing commission home in Melbourne's north west.As a little girl, she played football with the boys and then with grown women, and...
Published: May 11, 2026Duration: 53m 30s
Prolonged old age, the sandwich generation and biohacking—the realities of an aging Australia
Australians are living longer and longer, which is on one hand a beautiful thing. But on the other, prolonged old age is wreaking havoc. So how might we respond to this new demographic situation we find ourselves in?Lucinda Holdforth is a writer who specialises in looking at what makes good societies flourish, everything from manners to politics and equality.Most recently, she's set her sights on the unintended negative consequences following the extraordinary increase in life span around the world, particularly in Australia.In the past 50 years, human life expectancy across the...
Published: May 8, 2026Duration: 47m 0s
Encore: The misfit mammal that defies biological conventions
It was love at first sight, when Jack Ashby first set eyes upon a platypus specimen as a young university student.The introduction set him on a lifelong mission to meet these quintessentially Australian creatures in the wild, and redefine their reputation as "weird" or "primitive".He's met many other animals along the way, coming face to face with an elusive snow leopard family in the Himalayas, with wombats and echidnas, and seeing only the eyes of a sloth bear, reflecting his torchlight in a pitch black forest.Further informationPlatypus Mat...
Published: May 7, 2026Duration: 51m 0s
Lessons in living, grief and love from the Lebanese Civil War
Antoun Issa grew up quietly aware of a profound grief in his mother's eyes. As an adult, after living and working in the Middle East, he finally knew how to ask her about surviving the Lebanese Civil War.Antoun is a journalist who grew up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, after his parents had escaped the civil war in Lebanon in the 1970s.Growing up in Craigieburn as the baby of the family, Antoun was particularly close with his mother.He was always conscious of a deep sadness in his mother's eyes...
Published: May 6, 2026Duration: 53m 0s
Encore: Colm Toibin on his early life and running away to Barcelona, Brooklyn and beyond
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's first big move was from rural Ireland to Dublin after his father died when he was young. Then, it was off to experience the wild hedonism and sexual liberation of post-Franco Spain, a pleasant shock after needing a prescription to buy condoms in Ireland.Since then, he's journeyed to Sudan, Los Angeles, New York and beyond.Wherever Colm goes, he keeps a running list in h...
Published: May 5, 2026Duration: 52m 0s
'Propeller vs forearm, croc vs leg': The incredible job of a remote bush doctor
Specialist rural doctor, Damien Brown on dramatic rescues, slow interventions and the cases that moved him, including attending to two badly burnt men after a fuel tank exploded on a remote Queensland cattle station.As a young boy in South Africa, Damien Brown was always interested in science and medicine.His neighbour, the local veterinarian, would let him observe surgery in the workshop, so it was predictable that Damien would end up as a medical doctor.After his parents moved the family to Australia, the call to help others drew Damien back to...
Published: May 4, 2026Duration: 53m 19s
A journey to help thousands of horses and revive an ancient tradition
Filmmaker Kasimir Burgess travelled to Mongolia to follow two young men on their gruelling journey to bring 2000 horses to safer pastures during an exceptionally brutal winter.For centuries, the herders of Tsakhir Valley in Mongolia have protected their horses from the harsh winters by nominating their bravest young men to move them.But the ancient practice has been forced to stop in recent years due to climate change. Iron Winter documents one community's attempt to revive the tradition by initiating two friends into a rite of passage in danger of being lost.Further i...
Published: May 1, 2026Duration: 51m 0s
Encore: David Malouf on growing up in Brisbane and his life of letters
Award-winning Australian author, poet and essayist David Malouf died last week at the age of 92, he spoke with Richard in 2014.The first son of a Lebanese family, David spent his early years in South Brisbane, his vivid memories of life as it was then are captured in his classics, Johnno and 12 Edmondstone Street.Although his father played representative rugby league and was a champion boxer, David pursued a life of letters and during his career he published numerous highly-awarded novels and collections of essays.This episode was first broadcast in March 2014T...
Published: Apr 30, 2026Duration: 49m 0s
Matt Bevan on the history you think you know
The ABC journalist explains how competing, overlapping narratives and outright myths form our understanding of events of the past, featuring an impersonation of Winston Churchill talking about a lemon tree.Matt presents and writes the ABC TV show and podcast “If You’re listening”, where he says he explains the world’s most important stories while hiding in his basement from assassins and authoritarian regimes.He applies his Australian lens on major turning points in history; the villains, visionaries and vanquished and invites us to question what we think we know about the world. From th...
Published: Apr 29, 2026Duration: 51m 30s
Encore: My year circumnavigating Australia on a surf ski
Bonnie Hancock got the idea to paddle around Australia after she stumbled on a book in her local library, the wild adventure ended being a gruelling 12,700 kilometre journey took almost a year to complete.Along the way, Bonnie met sharks, crocodiles, and sea snakes, she battled unrelenting seasickness and some serious storms. She also met some fascinating characters and saw the whole of Australia from a very unique vantage point.Further informationThe Girl Who Touched The Stars is published by HarperCollinsThis episode was first broadcast in 2024The producer was Meggie M...
Published: Apr 28, 2026Duration: 52m 0s
The improbable life of 'The Pinching Padre', a vicar with a thirst for adventure and theft
Professor Daniel Reynaud on the incredible true story of an assuming vicar who turned out to be the most decorated military chaplain in Australian history, who had at one point lived his life on the edge.During World War Two, a self-effacing man named Walter Dexter served as the vicar of a church in West Footscray.Walter was in his 60s and his attempts to take up a career as a farmer and a teacher had failed, and so he’d returned to his earlier vocation as a clergyman.His children regarded their fa...
Published: Apr 27, 2026Duration: 52m 0s
Surviving White Island and what happened next — Stephanie Browitt's story
At 23 years old, Stephanie Browitt willed herself to stay awake long enough to survive a volcano eruption on New Zealand's Whakaari / White Island. More than six years later, her resilience and sanity remains as strong as ever.The rescue mission to White Island in November 2019 was led by three civilians, who immediately flew from the mainland, as the emergency services deemed the island too dangerous for their trained paramedics to get there.Stephanie clung on to consciousness, despite severe burns to 70 per cent of her body, because she knew she had to get back to...
Published: Apr 24, 2026Duration: 53m 0s
Sandi Toksvig's bright side
The Danish-British author, broadcaster and comedian recalls her unusual early life with glee, including how she came to be holding the hand of Neil Armstrong’s assistant at NASA’s headquarters on July 20, 1969. (R)Sandi’s interest in the world was stoked from a young age by her father, Claus, who was Denmark’s first Foreign Correspondent, and who was incredibly famous in his homeland.It was her dad who believed experiences were more important than day-to-day schooling, which is how Sandi came to be holding the hand of Neil Armstrong’s assistant at NASA’s mission co...
Published: Apr 23, 2026Duration: 46m 17s
My year with the real Rudolf Nureyev — a volatile but vulnerable genius
When the world's most famous dancer offered a young sailor a job as his assistant, Blue Robinson thought it was a joke at first. But what followed was the most fascinating and formative year of Blue's life.Simon 'Blue' Robinson grew up sailing and playing rugby on the idyllic island of Jersey, between England and France.In his 20s, he went further a field, first to London and then Blue started working on yachts sailing around the Caribbean.One evening at a restaurant in St Barts, Blue spotted a man whose face he...
Published: Apr 22, 2026Duration: 53m 12s
Encore: How I came to work with the lions who live in trees
Alex Braczkowski is a big cat expert and for years he's been following a rare group of tree-climbing lions, including the charismatic, enigmatic, three-legged Jacob.Alex fell in love with animals by accident, he'd just been expelled and while his parents were trying to find him a new school, they made him use his time wisely by volunteering at the Johannesburg Zoo.From there he went to game ranger school, and onto university at a campus nestled in forests at the base of the Outeniqua Mountains, which he shared with dwarf leopards. It was at u...
Published: Apr 21, 2026Duration: 51m 0s
My best friend was killed by her ex-husband — this is the message I want men to hear
Hannah Clarke and her three children were killed in an horrific attack that shocked Australia but for Dave Kramer their deaths were personal, he knew her ex-husband and had witnessed their relationship up close.But Dave's own childhood exposure to domestic violence had blinded him to some of the signs that Hannah and her kids were in danger.After Hannah's death, Dave began the difficult work of confronting his past and educating himself on how to recognise abuse and have the confidence to speak out and help.He now helps educate teenagers and young men...
Published: Apr 20, 2026Duration: 51m 0s
The story behind Sydney’s Luna Park and its impact on the city
Author Helen Pitt has written a history of the iconic fun park and it's a tale bound up with con men, crooked cops, and developers who have long wanted to snatch up the prime piece of waterfront real estate.Millions of people have happy memories of walking through the teeth of the gigantic face on the edge of Sydney Harbour but it wasn't the first Luna Park in Australia, that honour goes to the Melbourne version which opened a decades earlier.But the tale of Sydney's Luna Park is arguably the most dramatic and it's one of...
Published: Apr 17, 2026Duration: 50m 0s
Encore: What I learnt about Australia as an Outback GP
When Sonia Henry signed up to work as a GP in a remote mining town in the Pilbara, the experience changed almost everything she believed about Australia.An unfortunate romantic entanglement just before her final exams left her questioning everything, just as she was about to qualify as a doctor.To escape her life in Sydney, she signed up to work in some of Australia's most far-flung medical clinics.While working as a GP in places like the Pilbara, outback NSW, the Northern Territory and Broome Sonia had many experiences with her patients wh...
Published: Apr 16, 2026Duration: 49m 0s