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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2,000 episodes
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March 17 · 51 min
Encore: Tony Birch — op shop fever and old Fitzroy
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 gro
March 16 · 53 min
The ordinary and extraordinary lives of women, artists and mothers
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
March 13 · 51 min
Is America sliding into autocratic rule under Trump?
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.
March 12 · 45 min
Encore: Colin Hay's wild ride to fame with Men at Work, and the heartbreak in the aftermath
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 th
March 11 · 52 min
What happens to kids when they can't go to school?
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 lo
March 10 · 50 min
Encore: Is there a cheating gene?
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 surpr
March 9 · 52 min
How I use touch to tell stories — my work as an intimacy director
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
March 6 · 51 min
The decline of modern Britain — where did it all go so wrong?
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
March 5 · 45 min
Encore: climbing back into life after a schizophrenia diagnosis
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 floodi
March 4 · 48 min
John Howard's toy poodle epiphany
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 t
March 3 · 52 min
Encore: The fearless Kate McClymont — weathering death threats and court cases for work
Kate McClymont is chief investigative reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald, she has won 10 Walkley Awards for her work on some of the biggest crime and corruption cases in NSW. She grew up on a farm in NSW, and during university, funded her start in Sydney by setting up a busking booth in Kings Cross. Passers-by would pay her to answer a question, have an argument, or verbally abuse them. Kate's start in crime reporting came from an early job writing for a gossip column. She was instruc
March 2 · 54 min
Drought, depression and asking for help—how an Outback farmer found peace in the ocean
For years, Brendan Cullen was known around Broken Hill as the happy man who ran thousands of ewes across tens of thousands of hectares with a smile. What they didn't see was the guy crying in a room by himself, drinking himself stupid, thinking he wasn't providing enough for his family.
February 27 · 48 min
Where do we go when we die? Looking for answers in psychedelics
Filmmaker Lynette Wallworth on how nearly dying as a little girl set her on a lifelong path to interrogate out-of-body experiences, spirituality and what really happens to us when we die. When Lynette was a little girl, she had a near death experience on her grandparents' property. Her father brought her back from the brink and what she saw and experienced there, on the edge of death, came back with her. For years, Lynette struggled to talk about what happened so she made paintings and artwor
February 26 · 45 min
Encore: The spiked chair which began conductor Umberto Clerici's life in music
The chief conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra on the chair of spikes which accompanied his early musical career, and why he doesn't tone down his Italian self for work (R) During his Suzuki lessons in Turin, Italy, a young Umberto Clerici was sitting up straight on a chair full of spikes, lest his posture slip. Umberto chose the cello as his instrument, mainly because it wasn’t the violin, which sounded like a cat in a washing machine when played by the older students in his neig
February 25 · 49 min
How I went from being a new mum on food stamps to an anonymous restaurant critic, worldwide
The act of care and service through food has been incredibly important to Besha Rodell throughout her life, from her first, euphoric experience of a fancy restaurant at age eight, to the aftermath of September 11. Today Besha is the chief restaurant critic at The Age. The thrill of a fancy restaurant first imprinted itself on her psyche when she was a girl, treated to dinner at Stephanie's iconic spot in Melbourne. As a teenager, Besha was transplanted to her mother's native USA and got her f
February 24 · 51 min
From child preacher to wicked defector — leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses
Naomi Mourra grew up as a door-knocking Jehovah's Witness but at 21, she realised Doomsday was not upon her, and left the religion for good. As a child, Naomi thought she was going to live forever. She was told the end of the world was coming, but she would survive the apocalypse and live in paradise for eternity, because she was special. She spent her youth in Western Sydney, preaching these same beliefs to neighbours, strangers, and classmates because Naomi was raised as a Jehovah’s Witn
February 23 · 46 min
A boy called Little Chilli — how flavour and migration led to unexpected love
Tony Tan’s parents pinned their hopes on him when they sent him from home in Malaysia to Melbourne to become a white collar professional in the 1970s. There he found “funny smelling cigarettes”, a lovely man called Terry and a destiny he couldn’t escape. Tony was exposed to deep, rich flavour and the precision of cooking from a young age. His mother was a chef in Malaysian colonial kitchens and Tony would often accompany her to work, where he would sometimes receive a single golden, dripping r
February 20 · 52 min
A short history of the innovations that have shaped human progress
We rarely stop to wonder who invented the wheel, the alphabet or the printing press but so much of what feels fundamental to daily life was once a bold, untested idea, and someone had to think it up first. In The Shortest History of Innovation, Andrew Leigh traces that long thread of human ingenuity from ancient breakthroughs through to the inventions reshaping our world today like the car, social media and artificial intelligence. He also debunks some of the myths about how these things into
February 19 · 52 min
Encore: the Nyamal woman from the Pilbara transforming how we think about trauma
Psychologist Dr Tracey Westerman on her groundbreaking work transforming mental health outcomes for Aboriginal communities (R) Dr Tracy Westerman grew up in the Pilbara, where suicide and mental health issues have deeply scarred Indigenous communities. So this Nyamal woman decided to do something about it. Nyamal woman Tracy Westerman grew up in some of the most remote parts of Western Australia, moving from a station to a town called Useless Loop, eventually landing in the mining town of T
February 18 · 53 min
Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, an indestructible Nashville studio and the DNA of folk music
The iconic folk duo met at an audition for the only country music band at a prestigious jazz school in Boston. They immediately clicked, and joined the rich lineage of Americana artists that stretches back centuries. In their 20s, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings discovered they had something special when they sang together, a sort of eerie emotional resonance that is usually confined to the blood harmonies produced when siblings sing together. Ever since they've been making music together whi