Conversations

When journalist Jon Ronson visited castle owned by a digital tycoon, it became a portal into a world of disaffected men, grasping for purpose online in a world where traditional institutions are collapsing.

He had received a series of texts from his son Joel, after he was lured to a mysterious castle in the forests of New England late one night, and those texts set him off into an investigation of the modern manosphere.

Jon began to investigate the wider ‘man crisis’ – where some are feeling tossed around in a sea of conflicting ideologies of what it means to be a man today.

From the death of utopian factory towns to the false promise of YouTube influencer culture, Jon shows us our rapidly changing world like never before, and the men caught in the middle. 

He found a world drained of purpose, of collapsing institutions, in which a new era of disinhibited behaviour has taken hold of our online and real-world selves.

The Castle is published by Penguin.

Jon is currently on tour in Australia. He is speaking at The Melbourne Town Hall this weekend.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores masculinity, culture wars, gender wars, Musk, Trump, tech billionaires, Marc Fennell, manosphere, Louis Theroux, Peter Thiel, Hugh Hefner, Dan Bilzerian, Andrew Tate, Chris Mark, the castle, sons, fathers, fatherhood, death threats, murderers, ChaptGPT, AI, Google Gemini, Artificial intelligence, psychopaths, Zuckerberg, Argentina, anger, disenfranchised men, angry men, ICE, United States, Donald Trump, Nerd Reich, politics, silicon valley, gender wars, class war, race war, Louise Theroux, investigative journalism.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

When school principal Manisha Gazula changed how her students were learning to read, she began an entirely new system which made her an icon of literacy learning.

Manisha Gazula is the principal of Marsden Road Public School in the outer south-western suburbs of Sydney. 

When Manisha first came to the school, less than three per cent of its students were proficient in English reading and writing, which severely limited their options in life.

This was for many reasons - some children had never seen a book or held a pencil until they were ten years old, almost all of them didn't speak English at home, many came from refugee backgrounds, and Manisha was convinced that the conventional way of teaching literacy was not working.

So she introduced a new system that delivered much more explicit instruction in the elements of reading and writing.

It was a controversial change that made her first few years at Marsden Road tough, but the result was a radical improvement in student literacy, and now many other schools are following 'the Marsden Way'. 

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.

It explores literacy rates, Australian education system, NSW education system, public schooling in NSW, state schools, private schools, learning to read, my child doesn't like reading, Indian Australians, career change, motherhood, migrating to Australia, NAPLAN, standardised testing, books, ESL, English as a second language, the Australian curriculum, Marsden method, explicit instruction.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Psychologist Kerrie Lumbewe on trying to unpack what has happened inside ordinary people that has made loving one another so difficult. (CW: this conversation mentions suicide, please take care when listening)

Kerrie Lumbewe is a psychologist who specialises in love and relationships.

She spends her days sitting with people as they try and work out how to make things work; to understand how they can be in a partnership and still feel so alone; to make sense of how two people who started out crazy about each other can end up making each other crazy.

These people desperately want to stop hurting one another, but are also obsessed with finding someone to blame, or labelling someone else as toxic.

Kerrie has witnessed many personal accounts of love and desire, heartbreak, secrets and betrayal.

She has seen up close what allows relationships to flourish, or to fold; and how ordinary people can start making sense of love.

And Kerrie says our unfettered access to social media in the age of information is drastically changing how we relate to and love each other.

Kerrie's forthcoming book is called The Five Fatal Love Errors: How We Protect Ourselves – and Lose Each Other. It will be published in early 2027.

If you'd like to learn more about how you love, you can visit Kerrie's website and take a quiz.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores love, relationships, counselling, couples counselling, marriage, divorce, therapy, psychology, break-ups, heartbreak, pursuer distancer dynamic, separation, chase, situationship, modern love, modern relationships, dating apps, dopamine, instagram therapy, weaponising therapy language, Orna Guralnik, Gottman method, love maps, attachment theory, avoidant, anxious attachment, secure attachment, prison psychology, friendship, emotional intimacy, suicide, losing a parent, grief, mental health.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

When author Bonnie Garmus tried to sell her first novel, it was rejected 98 times, but then at 66, she wrote a novel called Lessons in Chemistry, which sold four million copies around the world.

Bonnie  had wanted to be a novelist since she was five years old.

Decades later, she was a copywriter, an open-water swimmer and a rower when she tried to sell her first novel.

After many rejections, she realised it would never be published.

One day Bonnie was at work when a male colleague took credit for one of her ideas. In a moment of anger, she then started writing a novel which would become Lessons in Chemistry.

Set in the 1950s and early '60s, it tells the story of Elizabeth Zott, a chemist and mother who hosts a cooking show that ends up teaching women about a lot more than food.

Bonnie was 66 years old when it was published.

The book has resonated with millions of readers around the world and inspired men and women to change their own lives.

First broadcast in 2024 

Further information

Lessons in Chemistry is published by Penguin

Bonnie's latest book is Peck and Peck

This episode of Conversations was produced by Nicola Harrison and Carmel Rooney was the Executive Producer.

It explores writing, books, anger, women in the work place,  rejection, success, publishing, Lessons in Chemistry, female characters, Elizabeth Zott, motherhood, cooking, chemistry.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Zoe Terakes is a writer and actor with deep family connections to the island of Crete, where their great-grandparents migrated to Australia from.

This island is the site of Europe’s first ancient civilisation.

Bronze Age Crete had palaces, temples, art, written language and mythology long before the Roman Empire existed, and centuries before the Parthenon was built.

When Zoe started reading the mythology of Crete they were astounded by how many of the tales involve mutability, metamorphosis, the transformation of this into that; from human to bird to lion and to human again – and from male to female and from female to male.

Zoe has retold some of these wild stories of blood, sex, love, divinity, humanity and magical transformations in their first book.

But the trans actor, who underwent their own transformation a few years ago, did not want to sanitise any of these ancient stories to make them more palatable for the contemporary audience.

Because, for Zoe, the power and enduring relevance of these epics is found in their tragedy, violence and mess.

Eros: Queer Myths for Lovers is published by Hachette.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores myth, storytelling, poetry, art, transgender, non-binary, gender identity, sexual identity, young Australians, Australian literature, Australian writers, acting, television, Marvel Universe, Sydney, Kings Cross, Greece, Crete, Talk To Me, film, Australian film, growing up in Sydney, growing up Queer.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Anthony talks about his turbulent childhood in the Adelaide suburb of Beefacres, escaping to a cocaine-fuelled New York in the 1980s to begin life as an actor, and how writing his memoir helped him forgive his parents.

Anthony grew up in the suburbs of Adelaide, in a house full of rage, disappointment and violence.He spent as much time as he could alone, reading books, watching classic Hollywood movies, and dreaming of another life.For a while he thought soccer might be his ticket to escape Adelaide, but it turned out to be acting when he moved to New York in the 1980s.

Anthony has won a Golden Globe for his work in the crime drama Without a Trace, an Emmy for the comedy Frasier and multiple Australian awards for his roles in films including Lantana and Looking for Alibrandi 

He was also the first Australian to win a Tony award for his performance in a Broadway revival of the Arthur Miller play, A View from a Bridge.

Anthony’s memoir is The Life We ChooseFurther Information

The Life We Choose is published by HarperCollins 

This episode of Conversations was produced by Jen Leake, the Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores acting, family, Italian migration, Adelaide, selling shoes, soccer, theatre, New York, Hollywood, memoir, therapy, violence, aggression, YouTube, 1980s, divorce, cocaine, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, movies.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Fashion designer Jenny Kee co-created a whole new era in Australian fashion in the 1970s. But nothing could have prepared her for her own next chapter.

Jenny was born in Bondi in the 1950s, and left Australia for London when she was young.

She began selling vintage clothes at the Chelsea markets, where she attracted attention for her stall and her brilliant style.

When she returned to Australia in the early 70s Jenny met a gifted couturier named Linda Jackson.

Together they embarked on a passionate creative partnership which began a unique and utterly Australian art and fashion movement.

Their clothes were made in wild colours and beautiful fabric, often festooned with images of native flowers and plants.

In the 1980s they took their designs to the world and were feted by Italian Vogue's Anna Piaggi and Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld.

In addition to all her achievements in fashion, Jenny's life has also been crowded with dramatic moments.

Her life story is even more incandescent than her wardrobe.

Further information

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If this conversation has been difficult to hear you can contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36 or chat to them via their website

When Edith Wright discovered the turbulent history of her great-grandfathers, who were some of the founders of the pearling industry in the waters off Broome, she knew she had to write down the storyEdith is a Bardi Jawi woman from the saltwater country of Western Australia’s Dampier Peninsula.

When she was a little girl growing up in the Kimberley, her dad would tell her stories about his two European grandfathers.

Both men were pioneers in W.A's pearling industry, which required the skill - and forced labour - of Aboriginal people.

After many years spent researching her dad's stories, Edith has come to a new understanding of her family's complicated legacy.

Further information

 The Burden and the Blessing is published by Magabala Books

Read more about the history of the W.A pearling industry

This episode of Conversations was produced by Elizabeth Kulas and the executive producer is Nicola Harrison.

Dasha Ross tells the story of her bizarre brush with memory loss and what happened when she and her husband decided to takeover a rundown beachside hotel in Sri Lanka.

Dasha 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 most epic escapades were with her beloved husband John Pinder, including the time the two of them took up a surprising offer to revamp and manage a beachside hotel in Sri Lanka.

Things did not go as planned as they battled typhoons, demanding guests and a meddling, possibly murderous, manager.

First broadcast in 2024

Further information

Dasha Ross' memoir, Big Trouble Coming is published by Valentine Press

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris, the executive producer is Nicola Harrison.

Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci on his childhood, becoming a success on Wall Street and why backing Trump was a colossal error.Anthony grew up on Long Island, part of a large Italian-American community and far away from the world of money, power and influence. When he was accepted into a prestigious university, Anthony’s parents put their retirements savings on the line to make sure he was able to go.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, he began his career on Wall Street, then into political fundraising as a way to network and meet new clients.

Famously, he would come to global notoriety when he was fired 11 days into his stint as White House spokesman during Donald Trump’s first term as US President.Since then he has distanced himself from Trump and the MAGA movement and built a reputation as a sharp observer of US politics.Anthony's latest book All the Wrong Moves: how three catastrophic decisions led to the rise of Trump is published by Penguin.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Jen Leake, the Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores US politics, US history, Italian migration to American, poverty, Pennsylvania, Long Island, sand mining, family, middle class America, working class, elite universities, Harvard Law School, Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, Donald Trump, The White House, getting fired, MAGA, the Republican Party, Barack Obama,