Author Barbara Allen discusses her work Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds (Reaktion Books, 2025). Through her style of writing animal biography, Allen creates space to honour and memorialise extinct animals. We discuss the tragic tales of the passenger pigeon, St Helena’s earwig, dusky seaside sparrow and thylacine. She recreates their presence and world through story.

Bio:

Barbara Allen was a nurse, then a school teacher, before studying to become an ordained minister in the Uniting Church in Australia. She has always been passionate about animals. Her previous books include Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds, Pigeon, Animals in Religion, Pelican and Broken Heart, Shared Heart, Healing Heart, a book about pet loss. She has been a minister in parishes, schools and aged care facilities. Barbara helped develop Australia’s first animal chaplaincy program at the Lort Smith Animal Hospital, in Melbourne. Recently widowed, she combines locum ministry with her writing ministry. She shares her home with her animal family: Harry, an elderly blind dog, Leaf an elderly cat, and several white doves.

Hosted and produced by Catherine Polcz with music by Carl Didur.