Conversations

Freediver Amber Bourke on the serene, otherworldly experience of floating down through crystal-clear water, with no oxygen tanks or fins, 70 metres below the surface of the sea

Stephen Walker with the thrilling, surreal story of the loyal communist and father of two who became the first person to journey into space, in a capsule perched on top of a modified Soviet R-7 missile

Dog trainer Neil McDonald and cattle wrangler Joni Hall on their loyal, emotionally intelligent charges: outback working dogs

Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett on his life in music, environmental action, and politics, and his life now on The Oils final tour

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'

Gavin Pretor-Pinney loved gazing at clouds as a child. As an adult, his fascination with clouds drew him from England to Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria to see the Morning Glory, the world's most spectacular cloud formation (R)

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)

Mimi Wellisch on the tumultuous path that led her back to where their story started — a Danish milkbar in 1964

Damian Callinan with the grand love story of his parents Adrian and Kathleen, who met in 1946 at a football match. They were together for 62 years until a ridiculous, terrible accident brought their lives together to a close

John Colapinto was singing a Beatles song in front of Bette Midler when he injured his vocal cords. The experience set him on the path to investigating the miracle of the human voice

Ben works with athletes including the Richmond Football Club and surfer Steph Gilmore in a counter-intuitive way. He helps them own their flaws, and find an intrinsic purpose so they can take both wins and losses in their stride. Ash Barty credits Ben with helping her become World Number 1 (R)

Lisa Leong on her colourful and curious working life in radio, and how a personal crisis after the birth of her daughter upended almost everything she knew

Ecologist Katherine Moseby is helping Australia's bilbies, quolls, and stick-nest rats evolve to become tougher, faster and stronger, so they can survive the looming threat of more than 2 million feral cats

Mark May was a brilliant but troubled young man who made a decision to leave society altogether in the 1980s. He descended into a remote gorge in NSW and survived in the bush by hunting and living in rough camps for 35 years. Writer Tom Patterson tells his story

Historian Phillip Deery on how ASIO recruited ordinary people as secret agents, including a 'nice widow from Adelaide' named Anne Neill

Dr Andrew Browning first went to Ethiopia as a young medical student. He has now spent nearly two decades working with Africa’s most disadvantaged women(CW: Andrew discusses the medical condition and treatment of some of his patients. Listener discretion required)

Dr Samantha Nixon used to be a quivering mess at the sight of a huntsman in the house. Today, she catches, cares for and milks tarantulas, funnel web and trapdoor spiders in a normal working day

Ky Furneaux spent 16 years in Hollywood as a professional stunt performer, falling, fighting and breaking glass on cue. She has managed to make her next life even more extreme — surviving in the wild, sometimes with just a knife, often naked

When Justin Carter crossed the Strzelecki Track by motorbike with his brother Chris and his aging father Neville, he knew he was in for an adventure. But then the odyssey changed his family in an unexpected way

When Wendy Sharpe read her late father's diaries, she began a new exploration of her Jewish family's history, including the story of her psychic grandmother, Bessie

When stripper and tattoo artist Ally Colquitt was arrested for drug dealing, it became a turning point. Inside her jail cell, she began reading, drawing, and embarked on the painstaking process of rebuilding her life from its ashes (CW: mentions suicide, grief and loss, drug use)

Joyce Morgan with the story of Elizabeth Von Arnim, the Australian-born literary sensation who captivated Victorian London

Entomologist Dr Trevor Lambkin says the main thing butterfly collectors need is a sense of adventure — something he has honed over 40 years of travel to the Torres Strait

After an early life spent surfing around the world, an Australian businessman got serious about his career and created a global tool for measuring peace in every country, and has since been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize

Paul is a musician, author and performer best known for his comedic alter-ego, Flacco. In recent years he's joined an eclectic band of people who ring the bells at his local church tower in inner Sydney. He's also been working as a volunteer, listening to and writing down the stories of people at the end of their lives (R)

Midwife Christian Wright with tales of emergency evacuations and surfing with crocodiles while working in remote Indigenous communities in Arnhem Land, helping Yolŋu women birth their babies (R)

Mandy's life changed completely in 2013 when she fell terribly ill with sepsis. Since then, with prosthetic replacements for all four limbs, she has learned to walk and drive again, and she doesn't want applause for living her life like everyone else (CW: mention of suicide) (R)

When Sue-Ellen Kusher was growing up in Brisbane suburbia, behind closed doors her Dad was an ASIO spy, training his three children as foot soldiers in the Cold War (R)

Gurindji man and ABC presenter Charlie knew a little about his mum's life story as he grew up. But after she died, he began to reckon with what she had lived through as a child (CW: contains mention of ATSI people who have died; mentions of sexual violence) (R)

A cat, a hawk, a monkey, a crow and a lop-eared rabbit: animals who walked into the lives of five people leaving the humans to wonder, 'What am I to this creature?' (R)

William returns to reminisce about the Christmases of his childhood and his brief but brilliant stint as a department store Santa (R)William returns with stories and reminiscences of the Christmases of his childhood.Under the tree would be K-Tel gadgets and pop albums, bottles of cheap aftershave and perfume, and a Christmas stocking stuffed with small toys, an orange and a jar of pickled onions.William also recounts his brief but brilliant career as a department store Santa, and a stint as the world's tallest elf.Further informationOriginally broadcast December 2020Christmas Tales is published by HachetteThe following songs have been edited for the podcast: It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year – Andy Williams I’ll be Home for Christmas – Bing CrosbySanta Baby – Eartha KittSkating - A Charlie Brown Christmas – Vince Guaraldi TrioI saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus – Bing CrosbyThe Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire) - Nat King ColeHow to Make Gravy – Paul KellyTo 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.

American novelist Ann Patchett reflects on the men who made her, going a year without shopping and her power to make herself invisible

As a child, Jamie Teh wanted a computer of his own so badly, he used to pretend, using his dad's business calculator. As an adult, he used this obsession to give online access to more than 100,000 blind computer users around the world, for free

Michael Curran met his friend Jamie at a music camp for blind children. Within a few years they had invented a free software to give more than 100,000 blind people around the world the power to use the internetMichael Curran lives on a property north of Brisbane with his wife and their two kids and their menagerie of animals.A few years ago he set up a ground-breaking software company with his childhood friend Jamie.Michael and Jamie are both blind, and the software they developed helps blind people use computers for free.NVDA is a screen reader which puts into spoken words or braille what is on the computer screen.The company now has partnerships with big tech companies like Mozilla, Microsoft and Google.But right from the start Michael and Jamie were committed to keeping their life changing software in the hands of the people who need it most, for free.Further informationDownload the NVDA softwareTo 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.

The Australian actor and writer measures the major events of his life against big moments in Australian cricket, including the nadir of his performing life when he was cast as an angry chicken

At 100cm tall, Rima is one of the smallest people in the world. But throughout her life, she's demanded to be heard (R)

Dennis Altman is an avowed Australian republican, but he can see the use of constitutional monarchies in times of transition. The question is: do they have the ability to withstand pressure from autocrats?

Kate Legge traces the lives of pioneering naturalists Kate Cowle and Gustav Weindorfer in Tasmania's sublime wilderness (R)

Jess Hill was a teenage magazine founder, a travel writer, a Middle East correspondent and a survivor of serious illness before she wrote her groundbreaking book on domestic violence

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

Abbas Nazari was a 7 year old refugee on a sinking fishing boat in the Indian Ocean when he was rescued by the MV Tampa, just as Australia closed its doors to asylum seekers. After being given a home in New Zealand, Abbas grew up to become a Fulbright scholar

The Mandandanji, Darambal and Wangan woman's career in theatre has taken her from Roma, in outback Queensland, around the world, with a brief break as a guard at a children's hospital

When Ken Henry was starting out in his career, Australia was known as the 'miracle economy'. Economics got inside him and Ken eventually helped the country sail through the 2008 global financial crisis

Linguist Kate Burridge with the story of how Old English began on a small, damp island on the periphery of the world

Harry Bowman tells adventurous tales from his three decades driving tour boats in the crocodile-infested Adelaide River, including the day he saved the life of a croc named Brutus (R)

Elizabeth Osborne with tales of struggle, love and grief from raising her five kids as a single mum, and the moment she saw her youngest, World Champion surfer Mick Fanning survive a shark attack on live TV

Joanne Petersen recalls working as a personal assistant to The Beatles' manager, the freedom of the Swinging Sixties in London and eloping to the Bahamas with a Bee Gee

Nadia Wheatley with the stories of two women ahead of their time: the writer Charmian Clift and her own mother Nina Watkin.Two decades ago, Nadia published her acclaimed biography of the late Australian writer Charmian Clift.Charmian is best known for her memoirs Peel Me A Lotus and Mermaid Singing about her family's poverty-stricken but wildly romantic life on the Greek Islands in the early 50s and 60s.While her husband George Johnston worked on his novel My Brother Jack, Charmian also tried to carve out time to write, while caring for their three children in an old stone house without electricity or running water.Making up for the practical challenges of life on Hydra was the beauty of the sea, and the endless talking and drinking with other expat artists, including Leonard Cohen and his lover Marianne Ihlen.After moving back to Australia, Charmian's life ended tragically after a drunken misadventure.Separating the truth from the mythology which had shrouded Charmian's life and death consumed many years of Nadia's working life.Then a few years ago she began another big project about a woman ahead of her time; her own mother, WWII Australian Army nurse Nina Watkin.Further informationHer Mother’s Daughter, A Memoir is published by TextLearn more about the crowdfunding project for a new documentary about Charmian Clift's lifeThe Life and Myth of Charmian Clift is published by HarperCollinsCharmian Clift's memoirs of her life in Greece, Peel Me A Lotus and Mermaid Singing are published by HarperCollinsSuzanne Chick's Searching for Charmian is published by Melbourne University PressTo 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.

Samantha Wheeler’s daughter Charlotte has Rett Syndrome, a rare ‘locked-in’ disorder (R)

Much-loved broadcaster and writer Wendy was born with a cleft lip and palate, into a struggling family. As a young journalist she saw an anarchic cabaret show which changed the course of her lifeWendy has enjoyed huge success over four decades as a comedian, tv host, a radio presenter and the author of many books for children and adults.She’s come a very long way from her origins in country Victoria, where she was born with a double cleft lip and palate.Her family moved from town to town, and for a time, because there was no mum around, Wendy had to be the surrogate mum to her younger siblings.After her talent for writing was spotted by a lecturer at Deakin University, Wendy became a cadet journalist at the Geelong Advertiser.Then she moved to the Sun News-Pictorial, and one night in Melbourne, she was sent to review a cabaret show.It was anarchic and funny and she'd never seen anything like it.Wendy decided to go into comedy herself. She bought records of Joan Rivers, Whoopi Goldberg and Woody Allen, and studied their acts.The first night she stood up at an open mic night for her 5 minute set, she knew it was the perfect role for her.She walked out on stage, the lights hit her, and she thought 'I get to say whatever I want and I get paid and people listen? This is the best deal ever!'Soon she was headlining her own shows at the Melbourne comedy venue the Last Laugh, and her life set off on a completely different path.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.