Artist Judy Cotton reflects on the Australia that formed her, and the legacy of her exacting mother — a champion sheep breeder and passionate homemaker
Aug 19, 2022•54 min
Surfing writer Tim Baker on how the hormones which saved his life after a cancer diagnosis fundamentally changed his experience of being a man
Aug 18, 2022•53 min
The Australian author on the bedtime story she wrote for her young sons, to try to explain the grief and uncertainty of their father's leukaemia diagnosis
Aug 17, 2022•48 min
Christie splits her time between training for road and track wheelchair races, holding down several jobs, and raising her family. The Tokyo Paralympics will be her seventh as a competitor, but Christie almost gave up marathons after the 2013 Boston Marathon, and the most frightening experience of her life (CW: mention of suicide) (R)
Aug 16, 2022•52 min
Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason on what it takes to keep up with her seven children — all of them gifted classical musicians. Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason is a former English academic and the mother of seven extraordinary children. All of them are gifted classical musicians. Her eldest daughter, Isata wrote and performed her first piano concerto at the age of eleven. Her son Sheku mastered the cello and performed at the royal wedding of Harry and Megan Markle. Every day the seven Kanneh-Masons, who range from earl...
Aug 15, 2022•48 min
Academic Will Visconti on the true history of the most famous cancan dancer in Paris at the turn of the century, and her later work taming lions
Aug 12, 2022•52 min
Tony Hoang was a teenage heroin dealer in Cabramatta at 13, grappling with addiction at 21, then cried out to God for a sign. What came next was more literal than he could have imagined
Aug 11, 2022•50 min
It was love at first sight, when Jack Ashby first set eyes upon a platypus specimen as a young university student
Aug 10, 2022•48 min
Historian Meredith Lake with the Bible's Australian history, from the convict era, to the Mabo land rights campaign, and the modern-day Pentecostal churches (R)
Aug 09, 2022•50 min
Documentary filmmaker Sharon Connolly has unearthed her family history of female whistling comedians, and how they changed ideas about how women should behave
Aug 08, 2022•52 min
Zayd Dohrn’s parents were militant left-wing revolutionaries, and he was born while they were living underground, fugitives from the FBI.
Aug 05, 2022•53 min
Gold Coast lawyer Chris Nyst on his 45 years in criminal law, defending career criminals, corrupt police, heroin addicts and a postcard bandit
Aug 04, 2022•51 min
Archie tells of writing Took the Children Away and playing it in public for the first time, of his belated reunion with his siblings, and his love story with Ruby Hunter (R) CW: For our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners, this program features the voice of someone who has died. Please take care when listening.
Aug 03, 2022•51 min
Australian violinist Charmian Gadd reflects on her 80 years, from her origins in the bush at Ourimbah on the NSW Central Coast, to her love affair with her teacher, the extraordinary Richard Goldner, who invented a zipper for the war effort
Aug 02, 2022•51 min
Tom Nash was 19 years old when he fell terribly ill with meningococcal septicemia, and all his limbs were amputated. After he learned to walk again on prosthetic legs and began to navigate life with hooks for arms, he built a new life as a nightclub DJ
Aug 01, 2022•46 min
Writer Susan Varga sees her life as full of hard joys - including her Hungarian Jewish family’s surviving WWII, her recovery from the stroke which destroyed her ability to write and speak, and finding the great love of her life in middle age
Jul 29, 2022•50 min
Sisonke Msimang fought hard to find a home. She was born in exile, the daughter of a freedom fighter who had fled South Africa during apartheid.
Jul 28, 2022•53 min
Even the cheapest guitars are made in part from trees which are becoming increasingly rare. Chris Gibson's curiosity about these timbers led him on a worldwide journey to understand the guitar's past and future (R)
Jul 27, 2022•53 min
Dr Campbell Costello (aka Dr Cozy) has probably the largest, and most exciting, consult room in the world
Jul 26, 2022•53 min
Maggie Beer started her working life at the age of 14 in a chenille bedspread factory. Two decades later, in a pheasant farm in the Barossa Valley, she found her dream job Legendary cook, author food producer and educator Maggie Beer grew up in Lakemba in South-West Sydney, and got her first job when she was 14. Maggie had to leave school early to go out to work to help support her family after her father's business went bankrupt. Although she had a varied working life over the next two decades,...
Jul 25, 2022•53 min
Former narcotics agent, John Shobbrook battled corruption when investigating an audacious plan to air-drop heroin into Far North Queensland in the 1970s (R)
Jul 22, 2022•51 min
When Sally Warriner left behind the life she had built in the bush, it took her years to define herself as more than 'just the general manager's wife'
Jul 21, 2022•51 min
The podcaster and comedian on her early life in Queensland — reading Enid Blyton and yearning to wear a coat; what improv comedy taught her about human nature, and how eyebrows were the key in finding her biological family (CW: Discussion of adoption. Please take care when listening)
Jul 20, 2022•52 min
The historical novelist has seen enough action to last a lifetime from her days as a Middle East correspondent, and it was her mother's imaginative influence that led her to turn her fascination with history into new interpretations
Jul 19, 2022•49 min
Dr Nerida Wilson spends a lot of her time getting acquainted with the mysterious creatures lurking in the dark depths of the sea
Jul 18, 2022•53 min
Debra Dank walks and talks differently when she's at home on Gudanji country, because she comes with this place. (Content warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners please take care when listening. Some elements of this program may be distressing)
Jul 15, 2022•53 min
Oceane was 18 when she attempted to take her own life. After a painstaking climb back into life, 20 years later she is a midwife, a writer and a mother of three (CW: mentions suicide and sexual assault)
Jul 14, 2022•52 min
The Tongan-Australian man on being privileged to see love in action in his grandparents, how a spiral into grief and anger led him to periodic detention, and how cutting hair today helps him steer young men away from a dark path
Jul 13, 2022•51 min
Scientists continue to discover the rarer and rarer objects which make up our universe. Why are we so obsessed with the particles around us?
Jul 12, 2022•50 min
Kate Forsyth on how revisiting the story of a bloodthirsty Minotaur lurking in a labyrinth in Crete made her realise how we all need monsters
Jul 11, 2022•53 min
