Conversations

Toni Jordan grew up working in a TAB and going to the greyhound races. Then she grew up to become a best-selling novelist

Sophie Matterson fell in love with camels at first sniff. After working with them for years, she hatched a plan to walk across the vast Australian continent with five humped companions - Jude, Delilah, Charlie, Clayton and Mac

Dean Laws was in his 50s when doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease. For a time, he was devastated. Then he formed a running crew with his friends called 'The Dean Team', and made a plan to run the Sydney Marathon

Barry Humphries was a legend of the screen and stage, but throughout his career, he remained astonished at the success of Dame Edna and her enduring appeal

Annette Trevitt with a tale of real estate, family and complicated grief set in the Pilbara mining town of Karratha

He's one of the world's most acclaimed opera stars, but Teddy Tahu Rhodes did everything he could, for a very long time, to avoid his destiny on stage (R)

Om Dhungel grew up in Bhutan, where his people became the target of a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign. Overnight Om became a refugee, eventually rebuilding his life and family in his beloved new home of Blacktown

Jackie Huggins with the story of her father Jack, who was a surf lifesaver, a rugby league player, a soldier taken prisoner in the Fall of Singapore, and the first Indigenous Australian to work in the post office (R)

Only six men, out of thousands, survived the horrors of the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Bill Sticpewich was one of them

When Bronwen Edward's big brother Mark took his own life, she decided to channel her grief into something much bigger than herself

Zoologist Milly Formby serendipitously became passionate about shorebirds while working as a tapestry weaver. She decided to learn how to fly, build her own plane and follow their path around Australia

High school English teacher, Brendan James Murray with funny, heartbreaking, inspirational and strange tales from his working life (R)

Danijel Malbasa grew up in an ethnically-mixed family in the former Yugoslavia. When the country was on the precipice of war, the Malbasa family was metaphorically and literally torn apart

Journalist Jackie Dent explores the the world of anatomists and dissectors, the people who open up human cadavers to uncover their secrets

Parenting expert Maggie Dent on on how parents can raise confident and well-adjusted girls

Writer Susan Johnson was in her 60s when she decided to make a new life on the Greek Island of Kythera, with her 85-year old mother Barbara along for the adventure

Matt Hall made his first solo flight at 15 years old and has been addicted to life in the air ever since. He became a top gun fighter pilot and after serving for more than 20 years, he still hasn't come down to earth

Phil Kafcaloudes grew up hearing stories about his legendary grandmother, who became a spy for the British in World War Two. It was even said she killed a man to protect her secret

Charlotte was Australia's first children's author. She came to the colony of NSW from London in 1826, and now her trailblazing, tragic and dramatic life story has been written by her descendants, Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell (R)

From Charlie Brown to Franz Kafka, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen explores why being a loser can be a good thing

Billy Bragg grew up in working-class Barking, east of London. The expected path was to go from school to the local car factory, but Billy his sights set further, and even a brief stint in the army couldn’t keep him away from a life in music

Gillian has the best job in the world — travelling overseas to bake sumptuous and heartfelt wedding cakes, using foraged and fresh produce to tell a couple's story through taste, texture and fragrance. Cake has been a staple in Gillian's life, through immigration, adventure and loss (R)

Micronations are home to fascinating, often eccentric characters who construct their self-declared countries in their own image, with pomp, pageantry and passports to boot.

Max Beck had a wild, lively and at times devastating childhood, growing up in Bendigo's old Crown Hotel

Roland Breckwoldt fell in love with the idea of being a cowboy as a child, so at 15 he railed against his strict German father's wishes, left home and found himself in the majesty of the Queensland outback

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)