Conversations

By ABC listen

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

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LAST EPISODE

Best of 2023 - Dean Laws

12.08.2023

Dean Laws was in his 50s when doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease. For a time, he was devastated. Then he formed a running crew with his friends called 'The Dean Team', and made a plan to run the ...

Conversations episodes:

12.08.2023 Best of 2023 - Dean Laws Dean Laws was in his 50s when doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease. For a time, he was devastated. Then he formed a running crew with his friends called 'The Dean Team', and made a plan to run the ...
12.07.2023 Best of 2023 - Karin Bäumler Some years ago, Karin Bäumler found herself in a fight for her life after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In the thick of it all, making music was a refuge
12.06.2023 Best of 2023 - Amar Singh Amar Singh's sense of belonging to Australia has only grown since he leant into his Sikh faith, growing out his beard and his hair, wearing a turban and committing himself to the service of his entire community
12.05.2023 Best of 2023 - Danny Estrin Voyager frontman Danny Estrin on his unconventional path from heavy metal to law and the Eurovision grand final
12.04.2023 Best of 2023 - Deb Wallace Former top Detective Deb Wallace with ingenious and surprising stories from her working life smashing criminal gangs in Sydney
12.01.2023 Sandy Mackinnon's never-ending adventures aboard Jack de Crow For 25 years Sandy wondered what became of the little yellow dinghy he left in Romania, after a months-long voyage from the UK. Could it still be waiting for him the marshes of the Danube Delta, ready for another adventure?
11.30.2023 Melissa Lucashenko and the story of Edenglassie Melissa Lucashenko was a motorcycle detailer, a house painter, a prison advocate, and a game show contestant before finding her way as a writer
11.29.2023 William McInnes and his favourite Australianisms The actor and author thinks that nowhere in the world is the English language more poetic, colourful and persuasive than here in Australia
11.28.2023 Piecrust promises and broken hearts Alecia Simmonds with tales from a time in Australia's legal history when the jilted and broken-hearted could sue for redress in the courts
11.27.2023 The truth about Pax Romana Tom Holland on the glories, bloodshed and barbarianism of the golden days of the Roman Empire
11.24.2023 Lee Miller: surrealist photographer, war correspondent, and gourmet chef Antony Penrose grew up knowing little about his remarkable mother Lee Miller, who had studied with Man Ray in Paris, and become a model, a photographer, and a war correspondent. But then an unexpected find in the family attic changed ...
11.23.2023 Lucy's button shop Lucy Godoroja deals in the business of buttons, and the stories each button carries with it from Bohemia, or Milan to her shop in Sydney, and then into the hands of passers-by
11.22.2023 Hayley's morbid curiosity British-Australian journalist Hayley Campbell uncovers the secret society of the western world's death industry, run by people who have made death their life's work. CW: contains discussions of death and descriptions of dead bodies
11.21.2023 Pentridge Prison, Australia's bluestone hell Writer and journalist James Phelps takes you inside the bluestone walls and medieval-looking turrets of Australia's most infamous jail
11.20.2023 Jon Owen's radical love Jon Owen on how he chose a life of 'intentional downward mobility' to help addicts, sex workers, and the homeless, from Calcutta to Mount Druitt to the Wayside Chapel
11.17.2023 Catherine Martin: making Elvis and loving Baz How a fashion-loving misfit from Sydney took over Hollywood with husband Baz Luhrmann, winning more Oscars than any other Australian (R)
11.16.2023 The ladder out of depression with psychiatrist Ian Hickie Professor Ian Hickie has spent decades trying to understand clinical depression. Where does it come from? What role do genes play? And most importantly – what works to release its chokehold?
11.15.2023 Prepared for anything Brendan Watson took his Scouts promise very seriously as a young boy. He's leaned in to his pledge in some very unexpected ways, from Moscow to Mongolia and through temporary blindness back home again
11.14.2023 The rise of the Super Bilby Ecologist Katherine Moseby is helping Australia's bilbies, quolls, and stick-nest rats evolve to become tougher, faster and stronger, so they can survive the looming threat of more than 2 million feral cats (R)
11.13.2023 Mick and Juana: a love story Mick O'Regan met his feisty, brilliant wife Jo for the first time on a work brigade in Nicaragua. They fell in love and had a beautiful baby boy. Then quite unexpectedly, when Jo was in her 50s, Mick became her ...
11.10.2023 Wily cockatoos, bin chickens and spangled drongos Darryl Jones on the dramatic lives of Australia's city-dwelling native birds
11.09.2023 How David got his sea legs When David Hannan was a young man, he fled university and took a detour to the wild coral coast of WA where he became a lobster fisherman, before earning an Emmy for his underwater cinematography
11.08.2023 Kylie Moore-Gilbert's freedom fight Kylie Moore-Gilbert spent two years inside the Iranian prison system, secretly communicating with fellow women prisoners while she waited for news from Australia
11.07.2023 Richard Flanagan's chain of events Richard Flanagan was forever changed as a young man, when he was trapped for hours and almost drowned in an isolated stretch of river on Tasmania's wild west coast
11.06.2023 Ariadne and the Minotaur Writer Kate Forsyth on how revisiting the story of a mythic Minotaur lurking in a labyrinth in Crete helped her realise that we all need monsters (R)
11.03.2023 Running from the FBI: life in The Weather Underground Zayd Dohrn’s parents were militant left-wing revolutionaries, and he was born while they were living underground, fugitives from the FBI (R)
11.02.2023 Killer sponges of the vasty deep Dr Merrick Ekins is Australia's leading expert in carnivorous sea sponges. Some sponges are secret killers, others are made up of glass and imprison tiny shrimp-like lovers for eternity, and others make love to themselves to reproduce
11.01.2023 Bruce Englefield's devilish charm On a whim, Bruce Englefield bought a wildlife park in Tasmania and moved from across the other side of the world to make life better for Tasmanian Devils
10.31.2023 Sandi Toksvig and the school of life The Danish-British author and comedian on her father's laissez faire attitude to school, and how this opened her mind and brought her to NASA's mission control room for the moon landing of 1969
10.30.2023 How Stephen sang himself to life From homeless teen to operatic stardom: how a job at the David Jones food hall changed the trajectory of Stephen Smith's life
10.27.2023 Shanelle Dawson: the daughter's story In 2018, Shanelle Dawson's family were the subject of a hit true crime podcast which helped convict her father Chris Dawson of her mother's murder. Now she's reclaiming her own story and the story of her mother Lynette
10.26.2023 Pip Williams: from dyslexia to the Dictionary of Lost Words Pip Williams was diagnosed with dyslexia as a teenager. She grew up to write a novel inspired by the history of the Oxford Dictionary, which soon became an international bestseller
10.25.2023 Penny Moodie's compulsive and compelling life Penny grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and developed habits to try to ward off impending doom. It turned out she had been living with obsessive compulsive disorder for 30 years
10.24.2023 The hunt for deep sea bioluminescence (and a giant squid) Marine biologist Dr Edith Widder was inside a submersible searching for bioluminescence in the ocean depths when she saw a giant squid as big as a two story house (R)
10.23.2023 The speech collector Tony Wilson was always drawn to the world's great speeches. Then, without warning, he was called on to make the most difficult speech of his life (R)
10.20.2023 Champion surfer Jodie Cooper on the breaks that made her How Jodie went from skateboarding in her home town of Albany to become a world surfing champion, frothing all the way
10.19.2023 Penny's odyssey to Greece and family An unexpected DNA test result sent Penny Mackieson on a mission across the other side of the world, to find her real natural mother, and discover her identity
10.18.2023 The caving time lord Dr Kira Westaway is a geochronologist who places modern and ancient humans in context by dating things found in caves. For Kira, how we understand ourselves now is tied up in the past (R)
10.17.2023 The lucky accident of Sydney's Opera House Helen Pitt on how the luminous shells of the Sydney Opera House nearly didn't get off the drawing board
10.16.2023 Lovemore's left hook A chance encounter led Lovemore Ndou into his local boxing gym, and a lucky left hook became his ticket out of apartheid South Africa
10.13.2023 Silverchair's drummer grows up Ben Gillies was a 15 year old drummer when Silverchair became a global sensation. After almost two decades of being a rock star, the band broke up, and Ben began to face his own demons
10.12.2023 The psychopaths among us Lawyer and author David Gillespie has been on a mission to understanding psychopaths after realising he might have worked with one
10.11.2023 The chef who changed the world Josh Niland on his mission to cook with fish eyes, fish liver, and fish sperm to help revolutionise how we cook and eat fish
10.10.2023 David Marr's reckoning with his family's brutal past David Marr with the story of his great-great-grandfather Reg Uhr, who led murderous expeditions with the Native Police during Queensland’s frontier wars CW: mentions the names of Aboriginal people who have died
10.09.2023 Ancestors like aliens: clues from the Cambrian explosion Diego Garcia-Bellido is a palaeontologist who specialises in soft-bodied fossils from hundreds of millions of years ago. These perfectly preserved eyes, guts and nervous systems provide a window into the beginning of our own family tree, and into life on ...
10.06.2023 Robyn Davidson, wandering spirit Robyn Davidson on her adventures high in the Himalayas, her love affair with an Indian prince, and her late in life reckoning with her own story (CW: mentions suicide)
10.05.2023 Jessica Cottis — inside the colour of sound Jessica is an orchestral conductor, organ virtuoso and also a synesthete who 'sees' colour in her mind's eye (R)
10.04.2023 Silk, sex, secrets and spiders James O'Hanlon digs deep into the secret world of spiders; complex and tiny lives most of us are either unaware or afraid of
10.03.2023 From Antioch to Syracuse and Tyre Historian Katherine Pangonis with stories from five cities of the ancient world, from their splendour in antiquity to their comparatively modest twilight
10.02.2023 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 (R)

Older episodes

Conversations

What's Conversations about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Conversations episodes:

Best of 2023 - Dean Laws

Best of 2023 - Karin Bäumler

Best of 2023 - Amar Singh

Best of 2023 - Danny Estrin

Best of 2023 - Deb Wallace

Sandy Mackinnon's never-ending adventures aboard Jack de Crow

Melissa Lucashenko and the story of Edenglassie

William McInnes and his favourite Australianisms

Piecrust promises and broken hearts

The truth about Pax Romana

Lee Miller: surrealist photographer, war correspondent, and gourmet chef

Lucy's button shop

Hayley's morbid curiosity

Pentridge Prison, Australia's bluestone hell

Jon Owen's radical love

Catherine Martin: making Elvis and loving Baz

The ladder out of depression with psychiatrist Ian Hickie

Prepared for anything

The rise of the Super Bilby

Mick and Juana: a love story

Wily cockatoos, bin chickens and spangled drongos

How David got his sea legs

Kylie Moore-Gilbert's freedom fight

Richard Flanagan's chain of events

Ariadne and the Minotaur

Running from the FBI: life in The Weather Underground

Killer sponges of the vasty deep

Bruce Englefield's devilish charm

Sandi Toksvig and the school of life

How Stephen sang himself to life

Shanelle Dawson: the daughter's story

Pip Williams: from dyslexia to the Dictionary of Lost Words

Penny Moodie's compulsive and compelling life

The hunt for deep sea bioluminescence (and a giant squid)

The speech collector

Champion surfer Jodie Cooper on the breaks that made her

Penny's odyssey to Greece and family

The caving time lord

The lucky accident of Sydney's Opera House

Lovemore's left hook

Silverchair's drummer grows up

The psychopaths among us

The chef who changed the world

David Marr's reckoning with his family's brutal past

Ancestors like aliens: clues from the Cambrian explosion

Robyn Davidson, wandering spirit

Jessica Cottis — inside the colour of sound

Silk, sex, secrets and spiders

From Antioch to Syracuse and Tyre

Confessions of a drama kid