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.
Whether it's an exploration of Australian and American politics, the intricacies of mental health, or the mysteries of ancestry and origin stories, our episodes offer a conversational approach that brings topics to life.
We uncover epic tales of war and peace, the complex dynamics of relationships and family, and the profound impact of grief and loss.
Follow Conversations for thought-provoking discussions, heartfelt stories, and a deeper understanding of the world around us.
Conversations explores the meaning of life, history, relationships, motherhood and fatherhood, love, religion and the origins of human life through a contemporary and conversational Australian lens.
From distinctive accounts of crime, mental health, ancestry, cults, grief, family and parenting, to discussions about science, books, art, music, war, spies and economics, Conversations traverses myriad topics.
Our interviews focus on pioneers of the natural world, wildlife, oceans, fungi, archaeology, palaeontology and megafauna.
Our guests speak about geopolitics, being a refugee and the experience of migration. They come from all walks of life — First Nations, Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander peoples, CALD communities and ancestors of Australia's first fleeters. We explore Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Sikh and Hindu faith traditions, among other beliefs, including atheism.
We look at social history as well — close encounters with the ancient world, the Stolen Generations, and adventurers on an explorative odyssey.
In a Conversations interview, you will hear personal stories of secrets, lies, adoption, and living with disability, neurodiversity or chronic illness.
We traverse a person's life story, full of human interest topics, including redemption, love at first sight, spirituality, poverty, having children, family dynamics and even hidden families.
We hear from individuals who have struggled with drug addiction, jail, family violence, political imprisonment, persecution, abuse, depression, anxiety and mental health issues.
Conversations also speak to the public figures of Australian and international society — leaders, artists, politicians, authors, sports stars, actors and musicians.
A writer, a builder, a neurologist, a Paralympian, an Olympian, an amputee, a historian, a comedian, a funeral director, a bird photographer, an ethicist, a doctor, a spy, a pilot, a choreographer, a firefighter, a bookseller, an astrophysicist, a martial artist, a principal, an oud virtuoso, an ecologist, a carer, a demographer, a chess master, a forensic archaeologist, a biologist, a chef, a surfer, a button shop owner, a costume and set designer, a boxer, a drummer, a conductor, a dog behaviourist, an AFL player, a longevity expert, a barber, a Matilda, and a psychologist have all appeared on our program.
After almost 20 years of digging into the lives, stories and worlds of thousands of people, Conversations continues as the ABC's most popular podcast, providing Australians with a social history of our country and paying close attention to the small, personal details that make up a life.
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 home. Actor Nicholas Brown regularly appears on Playschool — cavorting with stuffed animals and singing about the solar system. Back when he was growing up in Western Sydney there was no one who looked like him when he’d turn the telly on. Nicholas became the youngest student accepted to NIDA, straight out of school, but his career failed to launch...
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, God and her family. (R) In 1929 during the Great Depression, Ruth travelled with her mother and grandparents to Barambah, later known as Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission. After being told someone there would help them find a new home, they soon discovered they weren't allowed to leave. At 4 years of age, Ruth was separated from her family. She grew up ...
From the unforgiving tropics of the Kokoda track to Mt Everest, wilderness guide Steve Ellis has made a career teaching bushcraft and survival skills to civilians and Defence personnel – and along the way he has survived his share of life-threatening situations. Steve Ellis' own first lesson in survival came very young. He was just 6 years old when he got lost in the national forest near his family farm in central Victoria, but as Steve snuggled up to one of the working dogs for the night, he kn...
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 military. Moments later, the police closed in on him. Sean Turnell is an Australian economist with longstanding connections to Myanmar, the nation formerly known as Burma. In 2016, Sean was appointed as senior economic advisor to the dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, who had become the country's prime minister after decades of military rule. The country ...
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 famous author. Writer Nikki Gemmell grew up the daughter of a coal miner who thought writers were a burden on society, while her mum taught Nikki that only success was worthy of love. So Nikki went above and beyond to prove her beloved father wrong, and to get the attention of her mother through her achievements, publishing 20 books in the process, i...
Dasha Ross' most epic adventures were chartered with her larger-than-life husband John Pinder, including the time they managed a beachside hotel in Sri Lanka. Things did not go as planned. Dasha Ross has lived a life full of adventures, from nude modelling in Sydney and making films in Brazil, to renovating a nightclub in Harlem with a baby on her hip. But Dasha's biggest adventures were with her beloved husband John Pinder, including the time the two of them took up a surprising offer to revamp...
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 change his experience of being a man (R). Surf writer Tim Baker was in his early fifties when he was riding a very good wave in his life. He had a job he loved as a surfing writer, a beautiful family, and he lived within walking distance of the beach. But on a work trip to Los Angeles, Tim began to need to use the 'rest room' a lot more than usual. Back ...
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 obsessive-compulsive disorder. (R) Penny Moodie grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and ideas - that her parents would die in a car crash, that her mother was not really her mother, or that she had somehow contracted HIV aids. It's not unusual for children to worry about their parents and their own safety, but for Penny these anxieties went m...
They're violent and scary, some of them are madmen and others are convicted killers, but the gangsters who control organised crime syndicates in Melbourne are mostly just stupid, according to veteran crime reporter John Silvester. Veteran crime reporter John Silvester has been covering gangland wars, armed robberies and serial killers in Melbourne for almost half a century. Over that time, the city has changed dramatically from a big town, where organised crime was isolated to suburbia, to a 24/...
Beloved Australian actor, Noni Hazlehurst looks back on her life on stage and screen. Noni Hazlehurst has been on Australian TV screens and theatres for nearly 50 years. She comes from a long line of performers. Noni's parents met while they were part of a touring Variety act in the UK, and her great grandfather was a famous child trapeze artist. Keeping children company on Playschool was one of her best known roles, which she had for 24 years. In Noni’s day, Playschool was recorded in one take,...
The country music star remembers a childhood spent roaming the Nullarbor Plain, and the number one lesson she learned from her father. Kasey Chambers started singing around the campfire as a little girl. She and her family spent much of the year camping on the Nullarbor Plain, where her dad would hunt for foxes and rabbits. Kasey and her brother Nash had a free range childhood, and went to sleep to the sound of their father's rifle as he worked through the night. Singing came naturally to Kasey,...
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 love, and grief (CW: discusses the death of a child). In 2023, Gina Chick spent 67 days by herself, in the wilderness of Tasmania’s West Coast, surviving on worms, fish, and one unlucky wallaby. After those 67 days, Gina became the first-ever winner of a reality show on SBS called Alone Australia, but her approach to the competition was very different ...
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. Fintan O'Toole is an Irish journalist and author who writes on politics and history for the New York Review of Books and the Irish Times. He wants to change the way we think about Shakespeare's plays, because the way many of us are introduced to Shakespeare is wrong and boring. Fintan says Shakespeare’s work is wrongly presented as a delivery syste...
Writer George Saunders on how famous short stories by writers like Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Gogol are like miniature models of the world and how they can teach us to transcend our own limitations. (R) For many years, author George Saunders taught a writing masterclass in upstate New York, in which he introduced students to the stories of the great Russian authors. Conversations with his students about writers like Tolstoy and Chekhov have given George some of the happiest moments of his li...
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 dreamed an adventure would turn out like this. (R) Claire Nelson was hiking alone in Joshua Tree National Park in 2018, when she slipped on a stack of boulders and fell 25 feet to the ground. The impact shattered Claire’s pelvis, and she couldn’t even raise herself on her elbows, let alone stand. She could reach her phone, but in the middle of the Califor...
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 three (CW: discussion of suicide, please take care when listening). (R) Oceane Campbell has been very close with the raw stuff of life. She's a midwife and a mother, so she's seen and experienced the power of birth many times over. She has also been very close to death. At the age of 18, Oceane tried to take her own life. After she survived, she began a...
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 novelist. (R) Toni Jordan is a best-selling novelist. But she didn't grow up in a house full of books. Her mum ran a T.A.B. and her dad trained greyhounds for a living. Toni's mum was hardworking and hilarious, but she could also be hard to live with. All her life, Toni felt she had to look out for her mum. But after Marg became a grandmother, Toni began t...
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 the one that everyone expected. (R) Jon Owen came to Australia as a small child. He survived playground racism at school, and became a high achiever. His family expected him to excel at school and university and go on to a flourishing career. And that's exactly what he did — in a way that nobody could have predicted. Jon was near the end of his comput...
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 remarkable singing voice. A few years later, he became a tenor on the operatic world stage (R)
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 sheep had never set foot on. To get there, these animals and their drover battled drought, flood, famine and doubt. Tom Guthrie is a winemaker and sheep farmer in Western Victoria, and is a descendent in a long line of enterprising farmers. Almost 150 years ago, after surviving shipwrecks, fires and floods, Tom's ambitious great grandfather sent 11...
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 maker who builds houses to his clients’ wishes and quirks, using carpentry to turn recycled Australian hardwood into dream homes. It’s a craft Jeffrey says is dying. He grew up in Griffith, NSW, where he learned to swim in the irrigation channel and entice next door’s chooks over into his house to play. When he left school at 16, Jeffrey became interes...
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 how we cook and eat fish. (R) Chef Josh Niland is devoted to changing ideas about how we cook and eat fish in the Western world. He believes that rather than eating just the fillet, we should aim to eat the whole fish, as we do nose-to-tail with animals. At his restaurants, he cooks with fish eyeballs, fish livers, fish heads, and milt (fish sperm). ...
The deserts of Saudi Arabia are still holding on to many ancient secrets, hidden inside burial tombs and mysterious monumental structures called mustatils. Dr Hugh Thomas is on an archaeological mission to solve some of these mysteries. Hugh Thomas is an archaeologist who is fascinated by ancient mortuary practices and the secrets still hidden in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. In the north west of the country, thousands of mysterious rectangular structures, built in the fifth millennium, are still...
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, temporarily. Ji was an energetic, only child growing up on a bush block in suburban Brisbane when his parents brought home a trampoline to keep him occupied. Ji took to it so quickly, he learnt how to flip by that afternoon, and was a national champion in gymnastics just a couple of years later. He managed to make a career out of bouncing around, repres...
Psychiatrist Duncan McKellar wrote the report that triggered the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. He has seen how care changes when we take someone's life story into account. Duncan McKellar is a psychiatrist specialising in the care of older people with dementia and serious mental health conditions. When Duncan first started working with these patients, he was shocked to find elderly people tied to chairs and left in locked rooms. His advocacy helped trigger the Royal Commiss...
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 the world's finest actors. (R) Actor James Earl Jones died recently, at the age of 93. When he was touring Australia in 2013 with a production of Driving Miss Daisy, Richard had the chance to sit down with him and ask him about his life. Although we knew him for his magnificent voice, James Earl Jones grew up with a stutter. A stutter which was so se...
From sharks with wheels of teeth, to gargantuan sharks like the megalodon, palaeontologist John Long has traced the long and storied history of these oceanic hunters. Sharks and humans have a complicated relationship. We have long considered them monsters and super predators that should be eliminated for our own safety. But sharks are much more than scary and fearsome. The history of this incredible animal stretches back hundreds of millions of years. From sharks with wheels of teeth, to the asc...
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, an author of many books and Professor of Communications at The University of Queensland. She has described herself as a “concrete Koori with Westfield dreaming.” Many of Anita's books focus on great love stories, and the inspiration for these romances came from the enduring, devoted love she saw between her parents – the very Austrian “Joe-the-ca...
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. Gideon Haigh's brother Jasper was 17 years old when he died in a car crash. Until this year, Gideon and his mother were the only two people who really knew what happened to Jaz on that tragic night. Gideon has spent decades perfecting answers to questions about his brother — answers that never invited further discussion. This year, something peculiar ...
