Emily Kam Kngwarray, from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory, picked up a paintbrush in her 70s for the first time, and now her work will be exhibited at the Tate in London. A new film has been made about Emily, and will premiere at the Sydney Film Festival – called Emily: I Am Kam.

• Guests: Screenwriter and Producer Danielle Maclean, and Producer Anna Grieve
• Producer: Ali Benton

Originally broadcast on 12 June, 2025

Author Chris Sweeney tells the remarkable story of Roxie Laybourne, the Smithsonian ornithologist who became the nation's leading expert in feather forensics. Laybourne investigated thousands of aeroplane bird-strikes, but was also called as an expert witness at trials for murder, poaching and even a Ku Klux Klan hate crime. 

• Guest: Chris Sweeney, author of The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne
• Producer: Jack Schmidt

Originally broadcast on 11 September, 2025

The QWERTY keyboard wasn't designed to be fast or logical. It was created in the 1870s to stop typewriter keys from jamming - and to suit telegraph operators working in morse code. Since then, more efficient layouts like Dvorak have been invented, but none have stuck. So how did QWERTY become "locked in" to our machines, our workplaces, and even our muscle memory?

• Guest: Gianfranco Di Giovanni, Content Director for ABC Radio Perth and consumer technology journalist
• Producer: Rebecca Metcalf

*This show originally aired on 15 September 2025

In recent years, a number of states and cities in the US have decriminalised 'jaywalking', relaxing laws that campaigners argue have been disproportionately enforced on black and Latino residents. Jaywalking first emerged as a traffic offence in the US a century ago, when radical new ordinances gave priority to high-speed vehicles on the roads. Australia followed suit. A campaign of public ridicule shamed pedestrians into following the rules, but are (jay)walkers now reclaiming the streets? 

• Guest: Peter Norton, Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia, author of Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street

*This show originally aired on 10 February 2025

Should prison architecture be used for punishment, or could it be used to create hope, instead. Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes has helped design prisons in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. And visited others in Norway, Spain and  Japan.

• Guest: Professor Yvonne Jewkes, Bath University. Author of ‘An architecture of hope: reimagining the prison, restoring a house, rebuilding myself’ (Scribe) 

*This show originally aired on 11 March 2025

Sir Gerard Brennan served as the 10th Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest judicial position in the country. He was involved in several landmark cases, including the famous Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) decision. This case overturned the concept of "terra nullius" (land belonging to no one) and recognised the native title rights of Indigenous Australians for the first time under Australian law. His son Frank Brennan has collected his father's speeches in Gerard Brennan’s Articles and Speeches, Vol 2: Law in Accord with Justice 

Guest: Father Frank Brennan, SJ

Australia has a surprisingly long history of cinema enjoyment. It takes many forms, and pops up in a wide range of settings. 

• Guest: Ruari Elkington, Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries,  QUT

*This show originally aired on 03 February 2025

After 30 years of appearances on Late Night Live - spanning nine Australian Prime Ministers - Laura Tingle bade farewell to LNL as its political correspondent in Canberra, before commencing her ABC Global Affairs role. In a sprawling conversation, Laura recounts her early beginnings in journalism, the ebbs and flows of Canberra politics through the decades, and what she's come to admire in our representatives.

• Guest: Laura Tingle, ABC Global Affairs Editor 

*This show originally aired on 26 May 2025

Actor Dame Harriet Walter — known for her recent roles in TV hits like Succession and Killing Eve — has been performing Shakespeare on-stage for half a century. Her latest book She Speaks! imagines what thirty of Shakespeare's female characters might have said if they'd been given more voice in the Bard's beloved plays. 

• Guest: Dame Harriet Walter, actor and author of She Speaks!: What Shakespeare's Women Might Have Said, Hachette

Originally broadcast on 19 May, 2025

One hundred and twenty five thousand people visited Antarctica last year. Can the region cope with an ever growing tourism industry?

• Guest: Anne Hardy, Professor of Tourism & Society at the University of Tasmania

Originally broadcast on 5 February, 2025