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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Episodes2000

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Dec 16, 2025 · 53 min
Best of 2025: Claire Keegan on bravery, writing and the single life
The bestselling Irish author grew up on a farm set on “50 acres on the side of a hill”. Growing up, she witnessed a harsh, misogynistic country that convinced her she would never marry. Claire shares what she has learned about writing from a litter of newborn piglets. Her works Small Things Like These and Foster have both been made into movies. Claire's stories often take place in the landscape where she grew up — the farms and small towns of Wexford in Southeast Ireland. Claire was the young
Dec 15, 2025 · 52 min
Best of 2025: How Vincent Fantauzzo's life was saved by love and painting
When artist Vincent Fantauzzo was a boy he was a street-fighting petty criminal with dyslexia and a blazing talent for drawing. He escaped jail time, and grew up to become one of Australia's most well-known portrait artists. VIncent Fantauzzo is one of Australia's most successful portrait artists. For his luminous, photo-realistic paintings he's won the People's Choice Award at the annual Archibald Prize more than any other artist. He's also won the Moran National Portrait Prize twice, once w
Dec 12, 2025 · 51 min
Encore: the life of Norman Swan
How a boy from Glasgow named Norman Swirsky grew up to become Australia's most famous doctor When Norman was 10 years old his dad decided to change the family's surname to Swan in a response to ongoing anti-Semitism in Scotland after WWII. Norman wanted to be an actor growing up, but his parents encouraged him to study medicine. After he completed his studies at the university of Aberdeen he spent time working in London before moving to Australia. While on a break from medicine in 1982 he jo
Dec 11, 2025 · 50 min
William McInnes' bittersweet summers — budgie smugglers, boardies and bumming around
The author and actor thinks summer in Australia is done bigger, better and weirder than anywhere else. For three months of the year, life slows down and heats up. But for William, summer in Australia is an imperfect paradise where more than anything, people yearn to connect. Summer can be a hellish time in Australia, where temperatures soar and fires can turn bush and buildings to rubble in an instant. But despite the challenges, William McInnes looks upon this time of year with great affectio
Dec 10, 2025 · 52 min
How living like a Stoic changed my life
Journalist and author, Brigid Delaney looked into the ancient philosophy during an assignment from her editor. What she discovered led her to years of study and a brand-new outlook on life that focuses less on happiness and more on meaning and contentment. Brigid is devoted to the Stoics, a philosophy that encourages its followers to focus on what they can control, accepting what happens outside of that sphere of control, and mastering inner peace to have a good life. These ideas have helped B
Dec 9, 2025 · 52 min
The Rajneeshees and me—why Martina thought she needed a guru to heal
Cult survivor and psychotherapist Dr Martina Zangger on her ten years devoted to an Indian mystic and how she learned to stand on her own two feet. When Martina Zangger was 19 years old she became a devotee of the Rajneeshee Movement led by the Guru, Bhagwan. The cult had its headquarters in a huge ashram, built in rural Oregon, and Martina decided she needed to go there to be closer to Rajneesh to find the healing she desperately needed. She became a sex worker to fund her journey there from
Dec 5, 2025 · 52 min
Encore: Helen Garner's love letter to her grandson, and football
When Helen Garner began following her grandson Amby's under-16s football team, it was a chance to spend more time with her youngest grandchild before he became an adult and she was fascinated by the spectacle. She went along to all the games, and to every training session, shivering on the sidelines at dusk, it also gave Helen a new writing project. As Helen began writing about Amby and his season, she began to realise that part of the story was about the 'ordinary beauty of human society'. T
Dec 4, 2025 · 52 min
The forgotten men who fought and died in the wild jungles of Borneo
At the very end of World War Two, Australian soldiers were sent to Borneo to dislodge the occupying Japanese Forces. The story of their brutal fighting was largely forgotten by their own compatriots, who never understood why they went in there in the first place. It was one of the largest amphibious landings of the whole war, and what followed was months of brutal fighting on an island that was both a hell and a paradise. The operation was called Operation Oboe, and it was one of the most succ
Dec 3, 2025 · 50 min
Deciding to live—recovery from a decade long battle with anorexia
While fighting anorexia Lexi Crouch was admitted to hospital 25 times and placed in an induced coma twice. When doctors told her she would die, she began the slow climb up and out to health (CW: discussion of eating disorders) Lexi was 16 when she was first admitted to hospital and diagnosed with anorexia and spent the next decade in and out specialist clinics. When she overheard doctors talking about how she was going to die, Lexi decided she wasn't ready to give up and began to confront what
Dec 2, 2025 · 53 min
Frosty the supercars legend and his race to the top of Mount Panorama
Mark Winterbottom grew up in outer Western Sydney, in a family with not much money to spend on expensive hobbies. But by an extraordinary twist of fate, Mark won his first mini motorbike in a shopping centre raffle at the age of 8. Immediately, he was off, speedily rising up from bikes to kart racing, and then to V8 Supercars. Mark won race after race, earning him the nickname 'Frosty'. But for years, he could not wrestle the infamous Bathurst 1000 trophy from the hands of his great rival, Ja
Nov 28, 2025 · 52 min
Encore: Author Heather Rose on the grief lodged deep in her body
Heather's brother and grandfather died in a tragic drowning accident when she was 12 and from that day, she began looking for a way to commune with what lies beyond. The quest has taken the Stella award winning writer to Buddhist monasteries, Native American dance rituals and sweat lodges, and to the discipline of writing. And Heather has had an intuitive sense of life's mystery ever since she was a little girl growing up near the ancient forests and wild beaches of Tasmania. Heather's novel
Nov 27, 2025 · 49 min
A former army psychologist on ketamine therapy, PTSD and her surrogate twins
Louise O'Sullivan spent 10 years with the ADF, including deployments with the Special Forces in Afghanistan which eventually left her with PTSD, but a bigger battle lay ahead, the fight to save her premature twins. After leaving the military, Louise wanted to begin a family but cancer treatment had left her unable to carry her own children so she found a surrogate in Ukraine. But when her twins were born prematurely, she spent months living and caring for them in a Ukranian hospital. Eventual
Nov 26, 2025 · 45 min
Dad, Bob Marley and me
After the death of her father, a spiritual moment with the life-size wooden statue of Bob at Nine Mile convinced queer rapper, Jamaica Moana that everything would be alright. Jamaica was born to the music of Bob Marley on the Central Coast of NSW. Her dad loved Bob’s music more than anything else and would listen incessantly on his interstate truck driving routes. Jamaica was the beloved baby of six children, growing up in a Maori-Samoan family in the outer suburbs of Auckland. When the fami
Nov 25, 2025 · 52 min
How a pair of disobedient missionaries invented Australia's most iconic road trip
Tens of thousands of 'van lifers' and 'grey nomads' drive around Australia each year. But the iconic road trip has a surprising origin story involving a pair of missionaries, a retired butcher and a gun-slinging mother-daughter duo. David Riley is a pastor and father who was on a lap around Australia with his wife and three children when he heard about the surprising origin story of this great road trip. In 1925, two young men set off from Perth to Darwin in a tiny French car nicknamed 'Bubsie
Nov 21, 2025 · 51 min
Encore: How Johnathan Thurston became one of the greats
Despite being a stand-out young player, many NRL clubs initially rejected Johnathan Thurston because they thought he was too small and wiry but he went on to become one of the best rugby league players of all time. Johnathan showed his rare talent for rugby league early on but his parents didn't have the money to help him travel to games. So in his late teens, Johnathan moved to Toowoomba to get a start in rugby league, while working part-time in the butcher’s section of a supermarket. When J
Nov 20, 2025 · 51 min
How Aunty Rhonda learnt to cry
Artist, author and Stolen Generations survivor, Rhonda Collard-Spratt, on bush hugs, beehives, emu bumps, and finding peace. Aunty Rhonda Collard-Spratt is a Yamatji-Noongar elder and Stolen Generations survivor who grew up on the Carnarvon Native Mission in Western Australia. As a little girl she would escape from her dormitory into the bush to feel the love and warmth she was missing from her mum. After leaving the mission as a teenager, Rhonda trained as a hairdresser, creating some of the
Nov 19, 2025 · 53 min
From democracy to dictatorship and back again—how freedom falls and tyranny takes hold
Dr James Loxton on how modern democracies can crumble as authoritarian regimes take hold, but also how freedom and democracy can rise again, from the Americas to Europe and into Asia. James grew up in stable Canada, where he spent his summers herding sheep in the middle of forest plantations. As a teenager, he hatched a plan to escape his "rough as guts" bush town and the life of a shepherd, moving to India on his own to finish high school. At an international school in Maharashtra, James' cl
Nov 18, 2025 · 52 min
A bulldog on the ice -- Eric's journey from the South Pole to Outer Space
Eric Philips has always loved cold weather and from young age became fixated on the idea of polar exploration and following in the footsteps of the adventurers he read about in National Geographic. And he went on to lead gruelling expeditions to the North and South Poles, pushing his body and mind to the limits. Eric also had dreams of travelling into space and had assumed the would be impossible. But while on a ski expedition in Svalbard, he met a crypto billionaire who was planning a trip t
Nov 14, 2025 · 45 min
Encore: Love, sex and the secret life of retirees
Screenwriter Samantha Strauss on her grandmother's vibrant last years in a Gold Coast retirement home where love, sex and startlingly pragmatic conversations about dying were all part of daily life. (CW: not suitable for children) (R) Samantha Strauss started dancing from the age of 2, and as she grew up, she became increasingly serious about it. Sam was 18 when her budding ballet career was cut short by a shocking injury. After a year on the couch recovering, she reinvented herself. A few y
Nov 13, 2025
Making peace and finding laughter in my family's dark past
Reuben Kaye has always known he was going to be a performer and grew up a house that encouraged his love of the limelight. But in the background was the weight of his family history full of complicated characters and stories of cruelty. Reuben's parent both came from Jewish European families who were forced to flee their homes because of World War 2. And there were other more secretive stories, involving a return to Communist East Germany and a heartbreaking decision made by Alfreda as a yo