Conversations

Over her many decades as a practising psychiatrist, Veronica O'Keane developed a fascination for our memory, how it functions in the brain, and the role it has in shaping our identity

Fungi have given us many gifts, from penicillin to food, but they can also be quite scary. Dr Alison Pouliot spends her time trying to explain these strange alien-like things

Justice advocate Keenan Mundine broke the cycle of crime and incarceration in his own life after a chance meeting at a birthday party (CW: mentions suicide, references to drug use. Strong language. Discretion advised) (R)

Saul Griffith believes that the key to solving the climate crisis is to electrify everything, starting with our homes. The inventor, engineer and entrepreneur is spearheading this mission in his own postcode with Electrify 2515, which aims to have all household machines powered by renewable energy

Sarah Holland-Batt's dad Tony was a loving father, her intellectual mentor and her friend. At 18, she became one of his carers. Later she battled an aged care system which let him down in the worst way possible (R)

Lee Berger, the National Geographic Explorer in Residence and real-life Indiana Jones, has found remarkable things underground. His discoveries are revolutionising what we understand about our own origins

John Simons is fascinated by the lives of animals which have become stars. From a famous hippo at London Zoo, to a wombat owned by a Pre-Raphaelite painter in England, these are the rock stars of the animal world

Briana Blackett was a journalist working in Qatar when she realised her baby son Max wasn't responding to his name. When Max was diagnosed with autism, and in time her second son Freddy was too, she left Doha to begin an entirely different life (R)

Neville White was trying to heal from the trauma of the Vietnam War when he travelled out to a remote community in Arnhem Land called Donydji. Their stories became increasingly intertwined as he spent more and more time there

Gail Jones grew up in an old quarantine station, wondering about the soldiers who stayed there on their way home from WWI. Her new novel imagines life on the eastern front in 1917

Alex Braczkowski is a big cat exert and National Geographic explorer. For years he's been following a rare group of tree-climbing lions, including the charismatic, enigmatic, three-legged Jacob

Writer Louise Kennedy spent her early childhood just outside of Belfast. It was the height of The Troubles and violence was ever-present. After that violence came too close to home, Louise’s family moved to the Republic of Ireland. After 3 decades working as a chef, a chance invitation to a writer's group lead to an unexpected new career.

Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett on his life in music, environmental action, and politics, and the end of The Oils.

Amar Singh's sense of belonging to Australia has only grown since he leant into his Sikh faith, growing out his beard and his hair, wearing a turban and committing himself to the service of his entire community

One of the most influential disability rights activists in history tells her story of her fight for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human (R)

Rodney Fox was torn apart by a great white shark and it took 462 stitches to put him back together again. He was then instrumental in filming Jaws, the most terrifying shark film of all time. But over time, this salty seadog has become the apex predator's fiercest protector (R)

Esther Freud has many famous men in her family, including psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. But it is her mother's story which has left the greatest mark on the writer

Fintan O’Toole grew up in an Ireland undergoing great change but before the country could move forward, it would have to deal with its sometimes dark past.

Once journalist and author Kate Legge recovered from the news her husband of 30 years was cheating on her, she uncovered four generations of infidelity through his family

Jess Johnston found skydiving after a tough few years, and while it might sound like a contradiction, plummeting towards the earth at 400 km/h saved her life

No, he's not 'that' Richie Ramone, but this Richie Ramone's passion for punk is just as fierce (R)

For a thousand years, Colditz Castle has existed in some form, perched on the edge of a cliff in eastern Germany. From a royal hunting lodge, to a madhouse, and then most famously as an inescapable prisoner of war camp during World War II

As a child, before she escaped communist Hungary, Bo Remenyi had no ambitions. But when she got to Australia all of that changed. She's gone from cruising the casino floor as a high-stakes professional poker player, to saving the lives of children in remote Australia (R)

When Margaret Humphreys received a letter from Australia, she had no idea it would unearth a huge, heartless scheme that forcibly removed children from their homeland and sent them alone, isolated and confused to the other side of the world

Darwin's Ben Graetz on becoming one of Australia's best-known Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Drag Queens (R)

Franceska Jordan with the story of her remarkable mother Isabella — a South African trade unionist and anti-apartheid activist who inspired her daughter to carry on her community work

Growing up in Wangaratta, Judy Ryan learned we all have a responsibility to look after each other. When she moved to inner-city Melbourne that meant caring for the injecting drug users dying in her neighbourhood

Mark Trevorrow on how the music of composers Anthony Newley and Paul Williams influenced the course of his life and began the evolution of his alter ego, Bob Downe (R)

Kris Helgen loves mammals and he's ventured to some dangerous, isolated places to find them. In fact, Kris has helped name and discover more than 100 magnificent mammals

The new chief conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, on the chair of spikes that accompanied his early musical career, and why he doesn't tone down his Italianness in Australia.During his Suzuki lessons in Turin, Italy, 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 neighbourhood.Throughout his career playing in orchestras around the world, Umberto has gone to great lengths to let the music filter through him, to embody the meaning behind the notes, to learn what the composer thought or felt.Today Umberto Clerici is the chief conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Two years ago, Karin Bäumler found herself in the fight for her life after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In the thick of it all, making music with her husband Robert Forster became her refuge

After a serious brain operation, Anne Howell woke up in hospital with retrograde amnesia, thinking she was nine years old. With no real understanding of who she was or who she could trust, she set about rediscovering her identity

DNA expert Dr Jeremy Austin on his 14-year quest to help solve one of Australia's enduring military mysteries: the identity of the 'unknown sailor' (R)

Taranaki descendent Rachel Buchanan with the story of priceless Maori artwork and their role in the ransom of a child, kidnapped by Italian gangsters

How women cricket players saved the "gentleman's" game and repaired diplomatic relations between England and Australia

Melissa Redsell was 16 and in her last year of school when she found out she was pregnant. Although many people told her she'd 'ruined her life' she went on to prove everyone wrong

Firie Bronnie Mackintosh is built from tough stuff - she attends emergencies to cut people out of crushed cars and rescue them from burning buildings. Her strength was forged in Rotorua, New Zealand, where she experienced a violent undercurrent and the first frothy coffees, introduced by her parents

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)

Listened to around the world by locals, spies and military officials, Radio Australia has long been rated by its hundreds of thousands of global listeners as more informative than the BBC World Service. So why don't we know anything about it?

Hilton Koppe on how his life as a soccer-obsessed country GP changed forever when he became a patient himselfHilton Koppe grew up knowing his parents wanted him to become a doctor. When he got the marks to make it into medicine, they were overjoyed.By the time he was 30, he'd started working as a country GP. Hilton then became a beloved local doctor in Northern NSW, and he worked there for more than 3 decades.But a few years ago, Hilton's own health suddenly went awry. He started experiencing constant neck pain, and then the side of his face went numb.He was sent him for an MRI, which revealed nothing.But then his own GP gave him an unexpected diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, related in part to his work as a doctor.This news up-ended almost everything about Hilton's life.Further informationHilton's memoir is called One Curious DoctorTo binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Deborah Lawrie had her first flying lesson at 16, then became a flying instructor herself. But when she applied for a job as a pilot, she found herself in the fight of her life (R)

Vic Simms, Jen Cloher, Vika and Linda Bull, Rob Hirst, Elena Kats-Chernin, William Barton with stories from their formative years

Novelist John Grisham with his life story; from his work as a trial lawyer, to writing, and how he became involved in a movement using DNA testing to exonerate the innocent (R)

Academic Danielle Celemajer on how the Black Summer bushfires brought she and her rescue pig Jimmy into a terrible proximity with the inferno, changing both of their lives forever

Valerie Browning moved to the northern deserts of Ethiopia as a naive young nurse in 1973. A chance meeting on the streets of neighbouring Djibouti changed her life, and women's health in the region

Debra Gavranich with the story of her mother Marija, who left her tiny Croatian island to make a life with a man she’d never met, in Far North Queensland's Cassowary Valley (R)

Dr Irving Finkel on the ghosts who joined the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians in their day to day lives (R)

Tim Ferguson was in the midst of a high-flying comedy career when he started experiencing 'whacky symptoms'. In his early 30s, doctors told him he had Multiple Sclerosis

When Dr Genevieve Campbell heard the intoxicating music of Tiwi song women, it made her hair stand on end. Immediately she knew she needed to meet the women, and these relationships have changed her ideas of what music is

Dave Gleeson is known for his blistering performances in The Screaming Jets and The Angels, but he grew up singing at Mass in Cardiff, with a mum who opened their home to hundreds of foster children