Conversations

ABC Australia

Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met. Journey into their world, joining them on epic adventures to unfamiliar places, back in time to wild moments of history, and into their deepest memories, to be moved by personal stories of resilience and redemption.

Hosted by Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski, Conversations is the ABC's most popular long-form interview program. Every day we explore the vast tapestry of human experience, weaving together narratives from history, science, art, and personal storytelling.

Conversations Live is coming to the stage! Join Sarah Kanowski and Richard Fidler for an unmissable night of unforgettable stories, behind-the-scenes secrets, and surprise guests. Australia’s most-loved podcast — live, up close, and in the moment. Find out more at the Conversations website.

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2,001 episodes
Updated Today

Episodes2001

Newest first

Dec 30, 2024 · 52 min
Richard's Most Memorable Guests — Gregory Smith
Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. After a cruel and abusive childhood and an adulthood full of unemployment and homelessness, Gregory Smith decided to step out of society and into the solitary life of a hermit, living in the elements in a forest in Northern NSW. Gregory is an academic in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University in New South Wales. He recently completed his Ph
Dec 29, 2024 · 52 min
Richard's Most Memorable Guests — Uncle Jack Charles
Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. Uncle Jack was forcibly removed from his mother as a baby and denied his Aboriginality. A one-off trip to Fitzroy connected him with a family he didn’t know about, and promptly landed him in jail. Jack died in 2022. Help and support is always available You can call Lifeline 24 hours a day on 13 11 14 In a career spanning more than half a century, Uncle Jack Charles u
Dec 26, 2024 · 51 min
Richard's Most Memorable Guests — Sandy MacKinnon
Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. When Sandy Mackinnon set of through the waterways of England towards Gloucester in a Mirror dinghy, he little imagined he would find himself crossing the English Channel, the river systems of Europe, and eventually the Black Sea, on an adventure full of friendly strangers, amazing scenery and even a threat to his life. Listen here to Sarah's Conversation with Sandy MacKinnon
Dec 25, 2024 · 51 min
Richard's Most Memorable Guests — Elizabeth Chong
Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. Elizabeth Chong has spent the last 90 years teaching Australian's the delights of cooking real authentic Chinese food. Chef, author and teacher Elizabeth Chong was born in China's Guangdong Province in 1931. When her heavily pregnant mother was expelled from Victoria under the White Australia Policy in the 1920s, the whole family returned to China. Years later her f
Dec 24, 2024 · 49 min
Richard's Most Memorable Guests — William McInnes
Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. William McInnes is a much-loved Australian actor and an author, whose childhood in the sunny Queensland left him fluent in the peculiar, funny and colourful words and phrases unique to Australian English. Over the years, he's continued to collect them to celebrate how much they say about who we really are. William McInnes’ Stories of Fatherhood William McInnes on life after th
Dec 23, 2024 · 51 min
Richard's Most Memorable Guests — Shaun Christie David
Conversations is bringing you a summer treat — a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. Shaun Christie David grew up eating the Sri-Lankan recipes his mother brought with her from Sri Lanka. After a life-change trip to his parent's homeland, Shaun left a successful career in finance to open a social enterprise restaurant, Colombo Social, giving jons to refugees and serving food from his mother's cookbook. Shaun Christie-David's family migrated to Australia
Dec 22, 2024 · 52 min
Richard's Most Memorable Conversations — Magda Szubanski
Conversations is bringing you a summer treat - a collection of Richard's most memorable guests through out the years. This time it's Magda Szubanski. At the height of her successful career, behind closed doors, Magda was coming to terms with the past of her Polish-born father, whom she loved dearly, and who was an assassin in his early life. Magda is well known for her comic performances across film and television, and is perhaps most beloved by Australians for her role as Sharon in Kath
Dec 21, 2024 · 53 min
Best of 2024 — Bhawani O'Brien
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. The child of doctors, Bhawani followed her parents footsteps into medical school without a second thought. But after the dissatisfaction of decades as a GP, Bhawani discovered the field of voluntary assisted dying and it changed the course of her life. Help and support is always available You can call Lifeline 24 hours a day on 13 11 14 Bhawani O'Brien grew up in Malaysia with Sr
Dec 19, 2024 · 53 min
Best of 2024 — Ruth Shaw
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Ruth Shaw runs a collection of three tiny bookshops at the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island. Even more than the books on her shelves, Ruth's life has been a high adventure full of danger, tears, heartbreak and love. Help and support is always available You can call Lifeline 24 hours a day on 13 11 14. Ruth Shaw runs a collection of three tiny bookstores at the sout
Dec 18, 2024 · 52 min
Best of 2024 — Ken Wyatt
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Ken Wyatt was the first Indigenous minister for Indigenous Affairs. When he made his first speech to parliament, he wore a kangaroo skin cloak given to him by Noongar elders in Perth and he shared with his government colleagues the extraordinary journey he took from a boy in a remote Western Australian settlement, to Canberra. Ken Wyatt has Yamatji, Wongi and Noongar ancestry. H
Dec 17, 2024 · 52 min
Best of 2024 — Kasey Chambers
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Kasey Chambers grew up surrounded by country music, singing around the campfire with her family, and listening to her father's cassettes of old country classics. She now makes her own country music, which has won her a devoted following and recognition as one of Australia's favourite country music stars. Kasey Chambers started singing around the campfire as a little girl. She a
Dec 16, 2024 · 53 min
Best of 2024 — Candice Fox
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Candice Fox is one of the world's most successful crime writers, but she when she is not at her writing desk, you can find her rushing around Sydney rescuing stranded and injured wallabies, cockatoos, lizards, frogs and ducks. Listen to Richard's first Conversation with Candice Fox here. Candice Fox is one of the world's most successful crime writers. Her latest work is about a
Dec 15, 2024
Best of 2024 — Gideon Haigh
Gideon Haigh is a prolific author, but it took him decades to write down the story closest to his heart — the life and tragic death of his brother, Jaz, who was killed in a car crash at just 17 years. But eventually, on a hot summers evening, it all came pouring out onto the page, and became his book My Brother Jaz. Gideon Haigh's brother Jasper was 17 years old when he died in a car crash. Until this year, Gideon and his mother were the only two people who really knew what happened to J
Dec 14, 2024 · 53 min
Best of 2024 — Pauline McGrath
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Pauline McGrath's life changed forever when her husband of 30 years, David, was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor. Together Pauline and David set out to take advantage of the incoming Voluntary Assisted Dying laws about to come into effect in Queensland. Since David's death, Pauline has been has kept her promise to him to speak openly about their experience and be an advocate for
Dec 12, 2024 · 52 min
Best of 2024 — Rafael Bonachela
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. At the make or break moment of his choreography career, the last person Rafael expected to hear from was Australia’s pop princess, Kylie Minogue. Rafael Bonachela was born in the dying years of Franco’s Spain, into a patriarchal culture that didn’t appreciate little boys who wanted to dance. As the eldest of four brothers, his father expected him to be an example of academic ac
Dec 11, 2024 · 48 min
Best of 2024 — Anita Heiss
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Anita Heiss is a Wiradjuri woman and a prolific author. Her latest novel, Dirrayawadha, brings together Indigenous and colonial history, as well as Wiradjuri language, into a 19th century love story between an Irish convict and a brave Wiradjuri woman. Anita Heiss is a Wiradjuri woman, an author of many books and a Professor of Communications at The University of Queensland. Ma
Dec 10, 2024 · 53 min
Best of 2024 — Jack Beaumont
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Jack Beaumont (not his real name) grew up in a turbulent family in Paris before joining the French Air Force as a young man. After a devastating mid-air accident, he joined the DGSE and became a French secret agent and he now uses his first-hand knowledge to write spy thrillers set in the world of international espionage. Jack Beaumont (not his real name) is a former intelligenc
Dec 9, 2024
Best of 2024 — Rebecca Huntley
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Rebecca Huntley spent 50 years trying to process PTSD brought on from a traumatic childhood. But it was only when she decided to experiment with MDMA as a treatment that Rebecca's life began to change. Rebecca Huntley's public life as a broadcaster, an author and a social researcher made her well-known to many Australians. But in private, Rebecca spent years grappling with comp
Dec 8, 2024 · 54 min
Best of 2024 — Troy Cassar-Daley
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Troy Cassar-Daley is one of Australia's most beloved country music stars, with a string of awards and albums to show for it. But his latest album, Between the Fires, is a reflective, deeply personal exploration of grief, love and his childhood, caught between the two worlds of his Indigenous mother and his Maltese-Australian father. Help and support is always available You can call
Dec 6, 2024 · 53 min
Helen Garner's love letter to her grandson, and football
When writer Helen Garner began following her grandson’s under-16s football team, she gained a new appreciation for 'the ordinary beauty of human society'.