Conversations

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 Richard Fidler for an unmissable night of unforgettable stories, behind-the-scenes secrets, and surprise guests. Australia’s most-loved podcast — live, up close, and in the moment. Find out more at the Conversations website.

Last refreshed: May 22nd, 2026 at 3:20 AM ⓘ

Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.

Follow on

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

RSS

Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app

Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episodes

The Kharkov experiment

When Maria Tumarkin travelled back to her homeland with her daughter, she had high hopes for the journey

Jun 27, 2018•48 min

A question of remorse

Anthropologist Kate Rossmanith asks how our legal system decides if a criminal is truly sorry

Jun 26, 2018•51 min

The force of Will

Winemaker Will Rikard-Bell's skin needed to be almost entirely rebuilt after a 2008 explosion at a winery in the Hunter Valley

Jun 25, 2018•46 min

The mysteries of the Southern Ocean

Joy McCann's early fascination with the vast Southern Ocean has become a lifelong passion

Jun 22, 2018•54 min

Seeing Bergen-Belsen through my father's camera

Helen Lewis' father Mike filmed the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp

Jun 21, 2018•52 min

Michael Mosley and the gut brain

Dr Michael Mosley swallowed a tiny camera to peer into his own gut and its microbiome

Jun 20, 2018•52 min

The island of the ancients

Journalist Ben Hills travelled to Sardinia, where locals are three times as likely to live to 100 as anywhere else on earth (R)

Jun 19, 2018•44 min

The rise of a watchful boy

As a child, Trent Dalton was a silent observer of the drama of his family and his neighbourhood. He grew up to become an award-winning writer

Jun 18, 2018•50 min

Jennifer Egan on the women of the Brooklyn Navy Yards

Jennifer Egan time travels to the New York of WW2

Jun 15, 2018•51 min

John Marsden is an outlaw of education

John Marsden's years at a military high school inspired him to buy 850 acres of land to open a very different kind of school of his own

Jun 14, 2018•52 min

An erratic family saga

Vicki Laveau-Harvie was estranged from her parents for decades, until she was summoned to their isolated ranch on the Canadian prairies

Jun 13, 2018•51 min

Inside the murderous mind

Forensic psychiatrist Donald Grant has assessed the mental state of many people charged with murder

Jun 12, 2018•50 min

Searching for home via Shanghai burlesque

Dancer Jenevieve Chang's rebellion (R)

Jun 11, 2018•50 min

Miss Ex-Yugoslavia

How living between two cultures shaped Sofija Stefanovic

Jun 08, 2018•50 min

A friendship - and a giant literary hoax

Alison Hoddinott was one of the first Australian women to go to Oxford University. She then returned home to raise her family, and became great friends with the rebel poet, Gwen Harwood

Jun 07, 2018•51 min

How Hitler used heroin and methamphetamines to fuel the Third Reich

Norman Ohler has unearthed a little-known element of WWII history: the drugs which played a crucial role in the progress and failures of the Nazis (R)

Jun 06, 2018•46 min

Jill's big change

Jill Emberson worked for decades at the heart of social change, and never believed in marriage. But later this year her daughter will walk her down the aisle

Jun 05, 2018•52 min

An unexpected later in life love story, set in New York

At 48, Bill Hayes moved to New York. He took up photography, and fell in love with his neighbour, Dr Oliver Sacks (R)

Jun 04, 2018•50 min

Inside the Robbers Cave: testing tribal loyalties at a boys summer camp

Gina Perry uncovers the strange story behind a controversial psychological experiment

Jun 01, 2018•52 min

The art of taking sperm from a rhino

Dr Tamara Keeley uses reproductive technology to help save rhinos, Tasmanian devils and koalas from extinction

May 31, 2018•49 min

How a young Dutch woman discovered her savage self in the wild

Miriam Lancewood on her daily life roaming the New Zealand bush, hunting possums and goats to survive (R)

May 30, 2018•49 min

The murderous rise of Rodrigo Duterte

Jonathan Miller on President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody war on drugs in the Philippines

May 29, 2018•50 min

The One-Child Policy: understanding China's radical social experiment

Mei Fong explains how China's misguided population control scheme rendered it 'too old, too male, and too few' (R)

May 28, 2018•52 min

Eileen Myles: New York punks, and a dog named Rosie

A freewheeling conversation with the celebrated poet and essayist

May 25, 2018•51 min

Jessie Cole's survival story

After two suicides changed her family forever, Jessie Cole returned to Northern NSW to begin again (CW: Suicide references) Jessie grew up in Northern NSW in a rainforest house lovingly built by her parents. They had moved to the hills outside Byron Bay in the 1970s and believed they could remake the world. Jessie’s father had two older daughters from a previous marriage, who visited from Sydney every school holidays. By the time she was eighteen Jessie had lost both her half-sister Zoe, and her...

May 24, 2018•50 min

← Prev Next →

For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android