Conversations

By ABC Radio

Society & Culture

What's Conversations about?

Spend an hour in someone else's life. Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met.

4.5

142 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

The butterfly effect — coll...

01.18.2022

Entomologist Dr Trevor Lambkin says the main thing butterfly collectors need is a sense of adventure — something he has honed over 40 years of travel to the Torres Strait

Conversations episodes:

01.18.2022 The butterfly effect — collecting in the Torres Strait Entomologist Dr Trevor Lambkin says the main thing butterfly collectors need is a sense of adventure — something he has honed over 40 years of travel to the Torres Strait
01.17.2022 Steve Killelea and the measure of world peace After an early life spent surfing around the world, an Australian businessman got serious about his career and created a global tool for measuring peace in every country, and has since been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize
12.17.2021 Best of 2021 - Paul Livingston Paul is a musician, author and performer best known for his comedic alter-ego, Flacco. In recent years he's joined an eclectic band of people who ring the bells at his local church tower in inner Sydney. He's also been working ...
12.16.2021 Best of 2021 - Christian Wright Midwife Christian Wright with tales of emergency evacuations and surfing with crocodiles while working in remote Indigenous communities in Arnhem Land, helping Yolŋu women birth their babies (R)
12.15.2021 Best of 2021 - Mandy McCracken Mandy's life changed completely in 2013 when she fell terribly ill with sepsis. Since then, with prosthetic replacements for all four limbs, she has learned to walk and drive again, and she doesn't want applause for living her life like ...
12.14.2021 Best of 2021 - Sue-Ellen Kusher When Sue-Ellen Kusher was growing up in Brisbane suburbia, behind closed doors her Dad was an ASIO spy, training his three children as foot soldiers in the Cold War (R)
12.13.2021 Best of 2021 - Charlie King Gurindji man and ABC presenter Charlie knew a little about his mum's life story as he grew up. But after she died, he began to reckon with what she had lived through as a child (CW: contains mention of ATSI ...
12.10.2021 The animal that walked into my life — story collection A cat, a hawk, a monkey, a crow and a lop-eared rabbit: animals who walked into the lives of five people leaving the humans to wonder, 'What am I to this creature?' (R)
12.09.2021 A very William McInnes Christmas William returns to reminisce about the Christmases of his childhood and his brief but brilliant stint as a department store Santa (R)
12.08.2021 Ann Patchett's three fathers, her writing and her secret power American novelist Ann Patchett reflects on the men who made her, going a year without shopping and her power to make herself invisible
12.07.2021 Podcast extra: If computers could speak As a child, Jamie Teh wanted a computer of his own so badly, he used to pretend, using his dad's business calculator. As an adult, he used this obsession to give online access to more than 100,000 blind computer users ...
12.07.2021 Mick and the life-changing friendship Michael Curran met his friend Jamie at a music camp for blind children. Within a few years they had invented a free software to give more than 100,000 blind people around the world the power to use the internet
12.06.2021 Adam Zwar's twelve summers of cricket The Australian actor and writer measures the major events of his life against big moments in Australian cricket, including the nadir of his performing life when he was cast as an angry chicken
12.03.2021 The unusual life of Rima Hadchiti At 100cm tall, Rima is one of the smallest people in the world. But throughout her life, she's demanded to be heard (R)
12.02.2021 The case for constitutional monarchies Dennis Altman is an avowed Australian republican, but he can see the use of constitutional monarchies in times of transition. The question is: do they have the ability to withstand pressure from autocrats?
12.01.2021 Cradle Mountain's great love story Kate Legge traces the lives of pioneering naturalists Kate Cowle and Gustav Weindorfer in Tasmania's sublime wilderness (R)
11.30.2021 Jess Hill: a new kind of power Jess Hill was a teenage magazine founder, a travel writer, a Middle East correspondent and a survivor of serious illness before she wrote her groundbreaking book on domestic violence
11.29.2021 John Grisham: lawyering, writing and innocence Novelist John Grisham with his life story; from his work as a trial lawyer, to writing, and how he became involved in a movement using DNA testing to exonerate the innocent
11.26.2021 Abbas Nazari: After the Tampa Abbas Nazari was a 7 year old refugee on a sinking fishing boat in the Indian Ocean when he was rescued by the MV Tampa, just as Australia closed its doors to asylum seekers. After being given a home in ...
11.25.2021 Roxanne McDonald's deadly life on stage The Mandandanji, Darambal and Wangan woman's career in theatre has taken her from Roma, in outback Queensland, around the world, with a brief break as a guard at a children's hospital
11.24.2021 The country kid economist When Ken Henry was starting out in his career, Australia was known as the 'miracle economy'. Economics got inside him and Ken eventually helped the country sail through the 2008 global financial crisis
11.23.2021 The story of English Linguist Kate Burridge with the story of how Old English began on a small, damp island on the periphery of the world
11.22.2021 Harry and the monster croc Harry Bowman tells adventurous tales from his three decades driving tour boats in the crocodile-infested Adelaide River, including the day he saved the life of a croc named Brutus (R)
11.19.2021 Lioness Liz and her surfer boys Elizabeth Osborne with tales of struggle, love and grief from raising her five kids as a single mum, and the moment she saw her youngest, World Champion surfer Mick Fanning survive a shark attack on live TV
11.18.2021 The Beatles, Brian Epstein and me Joanne Petersen recalls working as a personal assistant to The Beatles' manager, the freedom of the Swinging Sixties in London and eloping to the Bahamas with a Bee Gee
11.17.2021 The brave lives of Charmian and Neen Nadia Wheatley with the stories of two women ahead of their time: the writer Charmian Clift and her own mother Nina Watkin
11.16.2021 The voice of a child who can’t speak Samantha Wheeler’s daughter Charlotte has Rett Syndrome, a rare ‘locked-in’ disorder (R)
11.15.2021 The trailblazer: Wendy Harmer Much-loved broadcaster and writer Wendy was born with a cleft lip and palate, into a struggling family. As a young journalist she saw an anarchic cabaret show which changed the course of her life
11.12.2021 Growing kindness, humanising medicine When Dr Catherine Crock saw her young leukemia patients suffering, she knew music would ease their pain, but she didn't know that years later she would be on the receiving end of the healing power of melody
11.11.2021 Surviving Currowan Bronwyn Adcock with the story of one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia’s 2019 Black Summer: the Currowan fire
11.10.2021 Dr Meryl, Death Detective Meryl Broughton with stories from her work conducting autopsies at a country mortuary (CW: Graphic descriptions)
11.09.2021 From the ashes of a failed farm Robert Pekin lost his family’s 4th-generation farm, and in despair, walked away from everything and into the wilderness. After much soul-searching and trial and error, he developed a new way to link food producers more directly with those who eat ...
11.08.2021 Confessions of a drama kid Actor and writer Brendan Cowell with tender and funny tales from his boyhood as a child actor and a budding playwright
11.05.2021 David Stratton's reel life The critic on what he has learned from watching 25,000 films, and that time he peed on Federico Fellini
11.04.2021 After Covid, the possibility of hope Andrew Wear on how Australia might change in the post-pandemic world
11.03.2021 A rebel on the bench David Heilpern with stories of drama, crime and heartache from his 21 years as a country magistrate (CW: references to drug use and sexual assault)
11.02.2021 The hero of The Zebra Hannah Kent with the true story of the Prussians who fled Europe for a new life in South Australia in 1838, then met a malevolent doctor on board their ship
11.01.2021 Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church Megan Phelps-Roper grew up inside the notorious Westboro Baptist Church family. In 2012 she left the church, and her family, to live in the world she once reviled (R)
10.29.2021 Jazz kings and wayward women Deirdre O'Connell with a tale of music, race and a secret militia set in Australia's Jazz Age (CW: discretion is advised when listening)
10.28.2021 How music keeps Allison alive As a child, ordinary sensations of clothes on her skin made Allison Davies feel as though her life was under threat. She recognised the life-changing power of sound when she became a music therapist — both for herself and others
10.27.2021 A blind croc, a missing man and his dog Kylie Stevenson delves into the story of Paddy Moriarty, who went missing from Larrimah, an outback Northern Territory town known for a weird pink panther in a gyrocopter.
10.26.2021 Night of the midget subs — Sydney under attack In 1942 three midget submarines armed with torpedoes made their way into Sydney Harbour to launch an attack on Allied warships. They were sent by the Imperial Japanese Navy (R)
10.25.2021 How a fish with tiny fingers changed history Palaeontologist John Long found his first fossil in a Melbourne quarry as a 7 year old. He grew up to unearth new clues as to how we became human, and to the origins of sex
10.22.2021 Stupid crooks, crooked cops, and honest John Former narcotics agent, John Shobbrook battled corruption when investigating an audacious plan to air-drop heroin into Far North Queensland in the 1970s
10.21.2021 Motorbikes, cheetahs, and the Maggie Island mail run Roland de Chazal is best known for being the 81-year-old motorbike postie on Magnetic Island, but his earlier life in Rhodesia had its moments too — it was there he met the Queen Mother and kept his pet cheetah, Jackals
10.20.2021 Judy Brewer's Mudgegonga love song Judy on life with her late husband, the politician Tim Fischer, and how her son Harrison helped inspire a new beginning on her farm (R)
10.19.2021 Rock and Dave Grohl Stories from Dave Grohl about his life in music, including how he went from being "that guy from Nirvana” to a superstar rock star fronting the Foo Fighters
10.18.2021 Finding Stalin's wine cellar John Baker on hunting down a cache of rare and impossibly valuable French wine hidden away by Josef Stalin, deep in the Republic of Georgia (R)
10.15.2021 Ed Ayres' life in music Music was always a friend to Ed, but while he struggled to come to terms with being trans, he couldn't face his beloved instruments. Once he accepted himself, his relationship with sound flourished
10.14.2021 The railway child: Monica from Clare Monica McInerney with tales from her childhood in a railway family in the South Australian town of Clare (R)

Older episodes

Conversations

What's Conversations about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Conversations episodes:

The butterfly effect — collecting in the Torres Strait

Steve Killelea and the measure of world peace

Best of 2021 - Paul Livingston

Best of 2021 - Christian Wright

Best of 2021 - Mandy McCracken

Best of 2021 - Sue-Ellen Kusher

Best of 2021 - Charlie King

The animal that walked into my life — story collection

A very William McInnes Christmas

Ann Patchett's three fathers, her writing and her secret power

Podcast extra: If computers could speak

Mick and the life-changing friendship

Adam Zwar's twelve summers of cricket

The unusual life of Rima Hadchiti

The case for constitutional monarchies

Cradle Mountain's great love story

Jess Hill: a new kind of power

John Grisham: lawyering, writing and innocence

Abbas Nazari: After the Tampa

Roxanne McDonald's deadly life on stage

The country kid economist

The story of English

Harry and the monster croc

Lioness Liz and her surfer boys

The Beatles, Brian Epstein and me

The brave lives of Charmian and Neen

The voice of a child who can’t speak

The trailblazer: Wendy Harmer

Growing kindness, humanising medicine

Surviving Currowan

Dr Meryl, Death Detective

From the ashes of a failed farm

Confessions of a drama kid

David Stratton's reel life

After Covid, the possibility of hope

A rebel on the bench

The hero of The Zebra

Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church

Jazz kings and wayward women

How music keeps Allison alive

A blind croc, a missing man and his dog

Night of the midget subs — Sydney under attack

How a fish with tiny fingers changed history

Stupid crooks, crooked cops, and honest John

Motorbikes, cheetahs, and the Maggie Island mail run

Judy Brewer's Mudgegonga love song

Rock and Dave Grohl

Finding Stalin's wine cellar

Ed Ayres' life in music

The railway child: Monica from Clare