Dead cows pinned to barbed wire farm fences. Light aeroplanes washed off runways and bent around trees like rubber. Guinea pigs swimming in storm water, saved by townspeople in tinnies.

Freelance writer and Northern Rivers resident Candida Baker heard and saw it all during the catastrophic flooding on Australia’s east coast earlier this year. 

Talking to Greg Callaghan, deputy editor of Good Weekend, Baker says the power of the water was inconceivable. “Nothing was spared,” she says. “Every single house, every single shop, every single building. The sight of huge shipping containers picked up and chucked around as if some sort of giant had just come along, twisting everything, almost for amusement.”

You can read Candida's story here. 

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Anita Jacoby has always been curious about the world, which makes sense for a TV current affairs producer of 40 years’ standing. It’s no wonder then that Jacoby received a shock when she turned her investigative skills upon her beloved late dad. It’s a story that would ultimately become a book - Secrets Beyond the Screen - and is the subject of our feature this week, “Tall tales”, as well as the topic of discussion on this episode. 

Hosted by the author of that piece, Good Weekend senior writer Tim Elliott, the episode examines Jacoby’s revelation that her father had two former wives, both of whom died by suicide. Her father was born in Germany in 1911, and moved through the First World War, the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Great Depression and the rise of Nazism.

You can read Tim's story here. 

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If there are two sides to every story, untangling these perspectives is the often unenviable task faced by a journalist, as it was for Brisbane Times reporter Zach Hope, who followed the Darwin trial of Constable Zach Rolfe over the death of Indigenous man Kumanjayi Walker.

Hope joins us on an episode of Good Weekend Talks to discuss his magazine cover story - Broken Heart - about Walker, a troubled 19-year-old from Yuendumu who was shot by an Alice Springs policeman after the teenager resisted arrest. 

Hosting this podcast chat is Greg Callaghan, the deputy editor of Good Weekend, who questions Hope about the nuances and underlying issues at play in a case as prominent and controversial as this one became.

You can read Hope's story here. 

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Sex talk is seemingly ubiquitous in 21st century life, yet there's one topic that’s conspicuous by its absence: discussion of sexual problems. “What’s out there often gives the impression that everyone’s doing it all the time, and it’s always fantastic, so people feel so ashamed and embarrassed if they’re having any problems,” says Dr Anita Elias, head of the Sexual Medicine and Therapy Clinic at Monash Health.

Elias is our guest on this week's episode, along with Good Weekend senior writer Konrad Marshall. On the podcast, Elias and Marshall talk about the importance of normalising conversations about getting it on – from the heavy and heartfelt to the hilarious, which is also the subject of our cover story this week, Frisky Business. Written by Marshall, that story is a profile of sexologist Chantelle Otten, a high-profile champion of the sex-positive movement (and Dylan Alcott’s partner). 

Hosting the podcast chat this week is Katrina Strickland, the editor of Good Weekend, asking questions about everything from the most common sexual ailments to the problematic intersection of sexology and the wellness industry, to the place of pornography in sex education.

You can read Marshall's story here. 

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The thing Suzie Miller loves most about storytelling is the ability to interrogate the systems we’ve constructed as a society. “And of course,” she says, “the biggest one of all of those is the legal system.”

Miller and her work are the subject of Good Weekend’s cover story this week, “Second Act”, by London-based freelance writer Jane Wheatley, who joins the podcast from Britain along with Miller herself. Hosted by Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland, this episode explores everything from one-woman plays to #MeToo to book and screen deals for Miller and her upcoming Sydney Theatre Company debut – a play celebrating the life of the late American jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

You can read Suzie's story here. 

Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

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President Vladimir Putin’s war has meant that all Russians are at risk of looking like villains. But not all Russians support Vladimir Putin, and many of those who don’t feel a complicated mix of rage and shame – and a determination to do something to help Ukraine and to show the world that not all Russians support their country’s leader.

Take Melbourne journalist Sima Tsyskin – a member of Australia’s Russian diaspora and former executive producer for SBS Radio Russia – who joins this episode to discuss everything from the “skilfully designed bombardment” of propaganda in Russian state media to the chaos, corruption and robber banditry of the country’s oligarchs.

Hosted by Good Weekend deputy editor Greg Callaghan, the podcast conversation is based on Good Weekend senior writer Tim Elliott’s latest cover story – “NYET!” – in which he takes the temperature of the Russian diaspora in Australia.

You can read Tim Elliot's story here.

Correction: Sima Tsyskin is a former Executive Producer of the SBS Radio Russian program not a former Russia correspondent as stated in the episode.

Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

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In this special longer-length episode, hosted by Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland, Kylie Moore-Gilbert talks about everything from the psychotic Revolutionary Guard who fell in love with her, to the federal government’s campaign to get her out of prison via quiet diplomatic means (she argues it only worked after the media started reporting her case), to the difficulty of rebuilding her life at home in Australia.

Good Weekend senior writer Jane Cadzow, who was given the first interview with Moore-Gilbert for our recent cover story, Prisoner 97029, says the complete isolation appeared to be one of the hardest things for Moore-Gilbert to have had to endure.

You can read Jane's story, Terror, loneliness, a lovesick guard: Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s 804 days in a Tehran jail, here. 

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On the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks, freelance writer and former BBC correspondent Nick Bryant assesses the rise and fall of Prince Andrew, and explains how the fortunes of the Queen's favourite son have tracked those of his country.

Joining him on Good Weekend Talks is Rob Harris, Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, who theorises that Prince Andrew's fall was less about his relationship with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and more about the car-crash interview he did with the BBC, in which he became “royal roadkill”. Hosting this chat is Greg Callaghan, deputy editor of Good Weekend Magazine. 

You can read Nick Bryant's story, Fall of the Favourite, here. 

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Clare Smyth is one of just seven female chefs worldwide with three Michelin stars. Having opened her first restaurant, Core, in London in 2017, Smyth opened her second restaurant, Oncore, in Sydney’s Barangaroo last November.

The Sydney Morning Herald chief restaurant critic Terry Durack gave the new venture three hats – the first time in almost 20 years the Herald has given a new restaurant three hats on its first outing.

Terry joins senior writer Amanda Hooton to chat about Smyth, the subject of our cover story this week in Good Weekend’s Autumn Style Edit. Hosting this chat is Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland.

You can read Amanda's story here. 

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What is this grief? And why are we so silent about it?

These are just two of the questions that Sian Prior, a former columnist for The Age, set out to answer in her new book, Childless: A Story of Freedom and Longing. In this episode, we discuss the long road to acceptance faced by a rising tide of women in the West who wanted children but didn’t have them.

Hosted by Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland, this intensely personal, one-on-one discussion examines the particular grief and deep reckoning that comes with wanting a child and not having one, but also the unfair labels lobbed at childless women, including “selfish” or “careerist”.

You can read an excerpt from Sian's book here.

Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/

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