Writer Tony Birch with tales of his Fitzroy childhood including his grandmother Alma's 'op shop fever', his love for pine cones and blankets, and the macabre holiday he lived through when he was 5 years old (R).

Tony grew up in inner city Melbourne in the 1950s and '60s.

His grandmother taught him to waste nothing. 

So Tony and his siblings would scour the streets for bottles, lead and copper to sell, and for wood from demolished houses to use for firewood.

His grandmother even ran a sly grog shop on Sundays to make extra money.

One day, however, Tony was sent to spend Christmas with a nice middle-class family in a leafy suburb.

When they insisted he stay on with them, he began plotting his escape.

Tony's short story collection, Dark As Last Night was published in 2021 by UQP.

Tony's other books include Women and Children, published in 2023, and his latest book Pictures of You.

This episode of Conversations explores Australian life, Melbourne, Thrift Shops, Saving, grandparents, frugal living, social history, social life in Australia, families, origin stories, books, writing, Australian literature, short stories, penny pinching.

Writer Drusilla Modjeska has built a career exploring the extraordinary lives of pioneering women writers and artists, who have never stopped asking important questions about gender, freedom and expression.

Drusilla was born in England right at the end of the Second World War.

She was raised to be a well-behaved and self-effacing young woman, in a very conservative time in history.

But Drusilla escaped this version of herself by marrying very young and moving to Papua New Guinea, and then to Australia.

On the other side of the world, her eyes were opened to different ways of being, and Drusilla went on to build a big career exploring the lives of pioneering women writers and visual artists.

In writing about the lives of women artists, Drusilla was eventually led to writing about her own mother, Poppy, whose creativity and independence were stymied by marriage and who was committed to a psychiatric institution when Drusilla was 12 years old.

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

It explores surrealism, surrealist art, art of the Pacific, Claude Cahun, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Clara Westhoff, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Moore, Gabriele Münter, Kandinsky, Lee Miller, Dora Maa, Picasso, painting, World War 2, boomers, conservatism, trad wives, feminism, manosphere, Louis Theroux, toxic masculinity, equal rights, misogyny, psychiatric treatment for women, institutionalised, women of world war 2, The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, the fany.

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, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

New York Times columnist and author M.Gessen on the slow strangulation of democracy, happening right now in Trump's America.

M Gessen grew up in the Soviet Union and migrated to the US as a teenager before returning to Russia in the 90s to cover the country's brief attempt at democracy and then the slow slide back into autocratic rule under Vladimir Putin.

M's insight into the mindset of the autocrat offers some clarity on why such leaders do the things they do and how they see the world.

This Conversation was recorded at the Brisbane Powerhouse, as part of the Brisbane Writers Festival.

Further Information M Gessen is an author and New York Times columnist, their latest book is Surviving Autocracy

This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan, Nicola Harrison is the Executive Producer.

It covers US politics, President Donald Trump, democratic institutions, the Soviet Union, state terror, state tyranny, Vladimir Putin, journalism, protest, ICE, Minneapolis, autocratic rulers, power, dogma, mindset, democratic freedom, voting in elections, Hannah Arendt, Milan Kundera, mutual aid, organising.

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.

Colin's band, Men At Work, was one of the biggest acts of the 1980s. Their first album shot the band to international fame. Then quite quickly, everything unravelled, and Colin had to begin again (R).

Colin's band, Men At Work, was one of the biggest acts of the 1980s.

Their first album shot the band to massive international fame, giving them two simultaneous number ones on the US charts, for album and single.

Along with Who Can It Be Now? and Overkill, another enduring hit for the band is the song, Down Under, a song now marked by a tragic legacy.

Men At Work enjoyed just four years of intense success, but according to Colin, they band was "over before it began", and they officially broke up after just three albums.

When his status as a global star evaporated almost overnight, Colin had to rediscover his origins as a solo performer, re-build his audience, and himself.

Songs played in this episode: Overkill, Who Can It Be Now, and Waiting for My Real Life to Begin.

Colin's Hay's fifteenth studio album, Now and the Evermore, was released on March 2022.

Find details of Colin's 2026 tour on his website.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan. Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.

It explores music, Aussie music, Aussie Rock, pub rock, INXS, recording, music industry, fame, fortune, life after fame, relationships, heartbreak, brief, origin story.

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 Megan Gilmour's son was 10 years old, he spent nearly two years in isolation at the Sydney Children’s Hospital. The months he missed at school didn't just affect him academically. 

Megan, her daughter and her husband all relocated from Canberra to be with Darcy in Sydney as he underwent life-saving medical treatment, and lived at hospital.

Over his many months in hospital, Darcy missed a lot of school. 

What worried Megan wasn’t just that he was falling behind academically, it was his loneliness and the way he was losing connection to his friends and his community.

Over time Megan watched how Darcy’s sense of belonging vanished because he wasn’t physically at school.

So along with two other mums she met through the Sydney Children’s Hospital, Megan decided to do something about it.

Not just for the kids who are missing out of school because they are in hospital, but for the growing number of kids who are away from school for a whole host of reasons.

Megan is the CEO and co-founder of Missing School, and she was the 2025 ACT Australian of the Year.

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

It explores chronic illness, sick kids, school non attendance, school refusal, my kid doesn't want to go to school, young carers, neurodiverse children, autism, ADHD, AuDHD, learning difficulties, childhood cancer, blood disorders, lonely children, invisible siblings, parenting, motherhood, online learning, COVID, digital schooling, bone marrow transplant.

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.

It was a Sunday night in the garage of their family home when journalist and author Kate Legge found out her husband of 30 years had been cheating on her for decades.

After a downward spiral as she came to terms with the news, the two of them took a road trip to Broken Hill to investigate the four generations of cheaters in his family line.

The process led Kate to look into the murky waters of how love was expressed in her own family, with an intellectually frustrated mother who could be surprisingly cruel.

This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan and the Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.

It covers topics including marriage, divorce, cheating, infidelity, relationships, alcohol, lies, counselling, research, memoir, family history, writing, psychology.

Further information 

Infidelity and Other Affairs is published by Thames and Hudson

Kate Legge's new book coming out in April is series of essays on food and friendship called Delicious, published by Allen and Unwin.

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.

I

Lisa Petty began her dance career in 1980s New York, intoxicated by the grime and flamboyant life of the city. She witnessed countless friends lose their lives to AIDS,  and the lessons she learned in closeness have stayed with her.

As a young woman, Lisa Petty was visiting her aunt in a retirement home when she started to speak to the older people there about the role of wartime dance halls in their lives.

These were stories of luminous intimacy. 

The old men and women’s faces would light up as they remembered being close enough to attractive strangers to smell them, to move together with music, and to have a few hours reprieve from the stress of war.

These stories inspired Lisa’s masters studies and she moved to New York to pursue a career in dance.

There, she found a friend soulmate in a man called Raymond, and they lived together for several years, before and after he became sick with AIDS.

After Lisa returned to Melbourne, she left her dance career behind and began working as an intimacy and movement director, helping performers to channel their character’s energy and translate that into the language of touch.

Further information

This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan. Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. 

It covers topics including intimacy, touch, single mum, AIDS, New York, Kaposi sarcoma, dance, intimacy co-ordinator, movement coach, theatre.

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.

For the last decade or so we’ve looked on as the United States has radically changed itself, but the UK has been changing too as it continues to struggle with economic stagnation and the fallout from Brexit.

The British people, famous for their aversion to radical and emotional politics, have embarked on a course which was supposed to take them back to the comforting certainties of the past, but has instead, brought them into an uncertain new world.

It began with the huge shock of Brexit, then the constant turnover of Prime Ministers including Liz Truss whose term in office was famous outlived by a head of lettuce.

In 2025 British Labor won government in a massive landslide, which saw many hope things might settle down, but now Kier Starmer is hanging on by his fingernails.

And for those looking to the monarchy for a sense of continuity and national unity, that’s not going well either.

So what on earth has happened to the land of toast and tea? 

Ian Dunt is a British political journalist and author of How Westminster Works and Why is Doesn't 

Ian is also a regular contributor to Late Night Live on Radio National.

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

It explores British politics, Brexit, the financial crash, austerity, David Cameron, The Conservative Party, referendum, European Union, New Labor, populism, government services, the UK-US alliance, Christianity, Marxism, puberty, disillusioned, dogma, ideology, psychedelic, journalism, political discourse, British public school system, elites, power, Prime Ministers, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, immigration.

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.

In the 1990s, Glenn Jarvis was living in London working for a very powerful American corporation called Enron. He was under a huge amount of stress at work, when his mental health began to spiral downwards.

In the late 1990s Australian Glenn Jarvis won a job in London with Enron, a giant American energy and investment corporation. Life was exhilarating and he made lots of friends.

But after a time Glenn began to notice some very odd transactions at Enron.

Giant amounts of money were flooding in to the company that simply couldn't be accounted for.

Glenn took it up with with his bosses, but they didn't want to know.

In part because of the questions he was asking, Glenn's reputation at work began to change, and his mental health began to deteriorate.

He had a psychotic episode, and spent the next 2 years in and out of mental health units in Australia and the UK.

Eventually he found himself back in town of Queanbeyan where he grew up, with no job, no money, and few friends who understood what he'd been through.

His family stuck by him, but things were difficult, and he ended up in supported accommodation.

Across the road from where he was living was a local Bowling Club. He would go there and buy a single beer most nights, and eventually befriended some of the regulars.

With the help of these elderly friends, and meaningful work, Glenn began a slow and painstaking climb back into an entirely different kind of life.

The former Kings Cross street kid on his time in prison, recovering from an alcohol-induced brain injury, the puppy called Sunny who showed him what love is and how buying car parking spaces set him up for the rest of his life.

Warning: This episode contains sensitive topics and reference to physical violence against women.

John Howard came from a dysfunctional and often violent home in the outer suburbs of Sydney, and when he was able to, he ran away to the dank but promising Kings Cross of the 1960s and 70s.

He would see Abe Saffron having dinner at the local Bourbon & Beefsteak joint and John found himself doing odd jobs for his sex worker friends in exchange for somewhere to sleep.

John was caught up in a horrific assault and in the following years he found himself in jail and then drawn to drinking.

At his lowest point he was rescued by chance by a passing taxi, and taken to hospital to recover from an alcohol-induced brain injury.

As he was recovering, it was a toy poodle puppy called Sunny who showed John what love and affection were — and from there he was able to build his life for the first time.

Further information

You can call the National Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence counselling service on 1800-RESPECT or 1800-737-732. 

This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan. Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. 

It covers topics like homelessness, alcoholism, prison escape, solitary confinement, toy poodles, lesbian separatism, disability support pension, brain injury, Callan Park hospital, Rozelle Hospital, getting sober, quitting alcohol, Kings Cross, street kid, sex workers, drug use, drug addiction, prostitute, Bourbon & Beefsteak, Abe Saffron, The Coconut Grove, doggy poo bags, pooper scoopers, Potts Point.

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.