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 her feel uncomfortable. Despite being born into a big Tongan family in Western Sydney, Winnie felt conflicted about her heritage growing up. But over time her understanding of what it means to be Tongan evolved, and at the age of 28, Winnie became the first Tongan Australian to have a novel published. Conversations Live is coming to the stage! Join S...
May 09, 2025•51 min
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 breastfeeding overnight at 11 months old. Today Jamila is an author, a broadcaster and the deputy managing director of Future Women, dedicated to achieving gender equity in Australian workplaces. A few years back, her life was on a powerful trajectory — she had been the chief of staff for a federal MP, written best-selling books and was a regular guest ...
May 08, 2025•53 min
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, friendly dolphin, named for the singer Dusty Springfield. Barry grew up in a tiny surfing village where he knew all the bird calls off by heart. His interest in animal science led him to Edinburgh Zoo, where he fed cassowaries and regularly, accidentally spooked a flock of Chilean flamingos. He assisted on a mammal research trip in Namibia, where he learne...
May 07, 2025•51 min
After a caesarean section on his labour ward went catastrophically wrong, Adam Kay took a radical inventory of his entire life. CW: traumatic childbirth, eating disorders. Adam was not far off qualifying as an obstetric consultant in the United Kingdom, when he decided he couldn't be a doctor any longer. He couldn't face ever again experiencing the tragedy of death during childbirth, nor could he understand the blunt response from his boss in the aftermath, and so he quit doctoring altogether. A...
May 06, 2025•47 min
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 were both diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Briana left Doha to begin an entirely different life (R)
May 05, 2025•53 min
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, Ray Seidler was locked in a herculean fight with his own mental health. His frequent bouts of depression caused him to regularly 'run away' from his own home and family, and eventually led to his suicide. His son, Jonno Seidler, has written about his father's life, and Jonno's own mental health diagnosis, which he's been determined not to keep secret...
May 02, 2025•53 min
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, like animal dung in her gumboots, Erna kept her nerve. She was born in The Netherlands, to parents who were involved in the Dutch resistance during World War II. Erna's love of languages took her to Spain, where she lived for many years with her widowed sister and young nephew. It was there she met a penniless Australian backpacker and fell in love,...
May 01, 2025•52 min
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 journalist and a writer (R) Mawunyo's parents had met in Ghana, migrating to Australia when she was a baby. At high school, Mawunyo fell hard for a charismatic boy, and for the first time, she was introduced to hip hop music. When she was offered a chance to further her budding media career in New York City at the Bible of hip hop, The Source magaz...
Apr 30, 2025•52 min
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 stage. You’ve probably seen one of Luke's dogs in action — he trained Bouncer, the labrador from Neighbours, the kelpie from the film Red Dog, and the maremma who starred in Oddball. Luke has trained cats, chickens and even earned the trust of a big, black pig with tusks, whom he says was a dream to work with. Training takes patience, discipline, and en...
Apr 29, 2025•46 min
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 best forensic DNA technology, he embarked on a quest to figure out who this man was and to track down his surviving descendants. This episode of Conversations explores DNA science, world war 2, Australian navy, history, technology, family history, HMAS Sydney, genealogy, unidentified remains
Apr 25, 2025•47 min
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 children to care for. After Adam's parents met and married, the family emigrated to Australia when Adam was three-years-old. He and his brother sped through school in Adelaide and Adam went on to become a lawyer. In 2010, he won the second season of Masterchef with Peter Gilmore's delicate Snow Egg, and he has been travelling the world ever since, sprea...
Apr 24, 2025•48 min
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 uniquely placed to assist, but Arnold also used another skill in the high risk operation: he listened to the mountain.The successful rescue made Arnold a hero to millions of people across India and it was in news all over the world, including back home in country Victoria, where the story surprised the community who knew him as a part-time truck driver a...
Apr 23, 2025•50 min
Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis grew up in Sydney, famous for its coastline and beachside existence. But for reasons beyond her control, she didn't learn to swim until she took the plunge as an adult. Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis has achieved a lot in her young life. She is a social researcher at Western Sydney University, she has represented Australia at the United Nations, she advices groups like UNESCO and a couple of years ago she was awarded the NSW Premier's Youth Medal. But for her family, Ang...
Apr 22, 2025•43 min
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 same week, Moth was diagnosed with a rare degenerative brain disease and doctors gave him just two years to live. Homeless and with their future together rapidly shrinking, Raynor and Moth decided to walk the South West Coast path. They camped wild in all weathers and often didn't have enough money for food. But amazingly, Moth's health began to im...
Apr 18, 2025•50 min
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 Tancred fell in love with Italy as a young man, and set up a job for himself leading hikes and tours across the country, and into the Alps. So Simon was familiar with the old trails and passes that crisscross the mountains, and which have been used for hundreds of years by shepherds, traders and travellers. But one day, someone approached him with ...
Apr 17, 2025•50 min
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 of Burnie, and realised community is where you find it. Justin Heazlewood grew up in Burnie, a coastal town on the North West coast of Tasmania. For years he imagined his hometown as somewhere he had to leave, especially if he was going to be any kind of artist. And there were other, more personal reasons that made staying in Burnie complicated. Jus...
Apr 16, 2025•52 min
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 as one of Australia's most exciting young painters. Loribelle Spirovski grew up in the Philippines, with her mum and her extended Filipino family. Her Serbian father, whom she had never met, was in Australia, driving taxis and waiting for the visa that would allow him to bring Loribelle and her mum to join him. Loribelle didn't meet her father until...
Apr 15, 2025•52 min
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 cruising the casino floor as a high-stakes professional poker player, to saving the lives of children in remote Australia. (R) In 2018, Dr Bo Remenyi was made the Northern Territory’s Australian of the Year for her work as a paediatric cardiologist. But her path to receiving that honour, and to her work in remote communities, has been filled with unexp...
Apr 11, 2025•53 min
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, well before gonzo journalists became household names. The real-life story of novelist Stella Maria Miles Franklin had an unexpected chapter after publishing My Brilliant Career. In 1903, Miles became a 'girl stunt reporter' by going undercover as a servant. For a year, she lived as a maid in Sydney and Melbourne's wealthy houses and wrote about th...
Apr 10, 2025•49 min
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 himself shaping a choir of Central Australian Aboriginal women, who had been breathing life into 138-year-old Lutheran hymns. Morris Stuart met his Australian wife, Barbara in London in the 1960s. The pair led a youth group attached to a nearby church, and initially tried to ignore their growing feelings for each other. Morris was a young, Guyanese...
Apr 09, 2025•51 min
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 particular, his ‘buttock clenching’ ascent up a 60-metre-tall eucalyptus known as The Vibe Tower. Nature writer, Andrew Darby spent more than 20 years as a Fairfax correspondent based in Tasmania. His stories involved the natural beauty of the bush, including visits to wild places and to the people who protect them, but it was deadline-driven and he ...
Apr 08, 2025•52 min
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 South China Sea, they thought all hope was lost (R) Anh is an academic and community volunteer who grew up in Vietnam in a Catholic family. Anh's childhood was idyllic, with a big extended family and a close friendship with her cousin named Joe. But life for the adults was complicated after the end of the war, and so in the early 1980s, her parents plan...
Apr 04, 2025•51 min
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, and grew up to become one of Australia's most well-known portrait artists. VIncent Fantauzzo is one of Australia's most successful portrait artists. For his luminous, photo-realistic paintings he's won the People's Choice Award at the annual Archibald Prize more than any other artist. He's also won the Moran National Portrait Prize twice, once with...
Apr 03, 2025•52 min
Rebecca Huntley, Rick Morton, Julia Zemiro and Sarah Kanowski bring you stories of human failure, misadventure and outright fiasco in a live storytelling event recorded at Adelaide Writers Week. A few weeks ago, some former guests of Conversations, and our two presenters gathered at the Adelaide Town Hall. The event was a live storytelling hour, with the theme 'Mistakes were made', in front of a rapt audience of 800 forgiving souls. Writer and social researcher Rebecca Huntley shared her dramati...
Apr 02, 2025•52 min
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 up. Sisters Dorothy and Josie Porter grew up in an interesting and sometimes volatile home on the northern beaches of Sydney in the 1970s. Together with their middle sister Mary, they lived in a world of books, a backyard menagerie of animals, and regular birdwatching excursions. Their father Chester was a well-known lawyer who was sometimes a expl...
Apr 01, 2025•54 min
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 grew up knowing his parents wanted him to become a doctor and so when he got the marks to make it into medicine, they were overjoyed. By the time he was 30, he'd started working as a country GP. Hilton then became a beloved local doctor in Northern NSW, and he worked there for more than three decades. But a few years ago, Hilton's own health suddenly...
Mar 28, 2025•52 min
Journalist and author Sonya Voumard on the rare neurological condition that has stalked her since a family tragedy during her childhood. Sonya Voumard was on the precipice of teen hood when her father suddenly and unexpectedly died. In the months following his death, Sonya developed a tremor in her right hand, not dissimilar to the shaking she sometimes noticed in her father when he was cutting the top off her boiled egg at breakfast. The tremor got worse as she got older, but working late night...
Mar 27, 2025•51 min
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 the antidote. Ros spent a year travelling around the world to research something all of us have experienced — loneliness. She met an old man who had learned to thrive through crushing grief with the help of a small, desktop robot. Ros visited a share house in Sweden where pensioners live with young asylum seekers, who care for each other like grandpa...
Mar 26, 2025•52 min
The chief investigative reporter on her work exposing criminals and corruption, including former politician, Eddie Obeid and financial fraudster, Melissa Caddick. Kate McClymont is chief investigative reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. She grew up on a farm in NSW, and during university, funded her start in Sydney by setting up a busking booth in Kings Cross. Passers-by would pay her to answer a question, have an argument, or verbally abuse them. Kate's start in crime reporting came from an...
Mar 25, 2025•54 min
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 would become a focus of her life (R) Growing up, Krystyna Duszniak's father didn't speak a word of English to her, instilling in her a love of the Polish language, literature, history and culture. As the child of immigrants who had survived World War II, history was all around Krystyna, and while her patriotic father taught her so much about his homeland, sh...
Mar 21, 2025•52 min
