Conversations

Raised in a loving but strict Italian household, Pina Arena became ‘Tina’ to compete on Young Talent Time. Reinventing herself as an adult singer was tough, and it took a disastrous marriage and years living away from Australia to find her self-confidence

Ruth Coker Burks was a young single mum in Hot Springs, Arkansas, when she began helping the dying men everyone else had rejected

Stefan Eberhard on his life as a subterranean ecologist cave diving around the world, including inside the vast glowing chambers found beneath the Nullarbor Plain (R)

Widely known for her performance as Mrs Danvers, in the Hitchcock film, Rebecca, Judith gained a new cult following when she played a Star Trek Vulcan high priestess. Biographer Desley Deacon unearths the life story of an exceptional South-Australian born actor (R)

Sydney GP Dr Brad McKay is often in the media warning against taking health advice from those unqualified to give it, such as Instagram 'wellness influencers'. Then in 2020 Brad learned his name and face were being used to sell Keto diet pills online

Lydia Pearson with the story of the chance meeting which saw her co-found a fashion label which became a global sensation

Judith was nearly 50 and dealing with grief, menopause and a world in climate crisis when the unthinkable happened

Dan Richards follows his curiosity to some of the most remote habitable places in the world including an Icelandic cabin and a monastery high in the mountains of Japan (R)

Lech Blaine was 17 when he walked away unscratched from a fatal head-on collision outside Toowoomba which killed three of his friends and left two of them in comas (CW: contains graphic descriptions of road trauma and accidents. Discretion advised)

Andrew Darby flew around the world on the trail of a small, unassuming migratory shorebird called the Grey Plover. In the middle of his journey, without warning, he began to fear for his own survival (R)

Patrice Newell was a model and a TV host before she began a new life as a biodynamic farmer (R)

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)

Instead of becoming an Olympic gymnast as she'd dreamed, by nineteen Kirsty Everett had survived leukaemia twice and fought her way to university. A childhood marked by punishing treatment regimes and the deaths of friends fed Kirsty's fierce determination to make the most of life

Writer George Saunders says stories by Russian writers Chekhov, Turgenev, Gogol and Tolstoy can guide us as to 'how we are supposed to be living down here'

With countries in lockdown, the showdown with China accelerating and the rise of white supremacy, the planet stands on a precipice. Journalist Stan Grant looks at a possible way forward

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 babiesChristian lives in the tiny town of Nhulunbuy right on the tip of the Northern Territory.His job there is an unusual one.Christian doesn't work in the mines like most of the whitefellas in town.He's a midwife, working with the Indigenous women of remote Arnhem Land to help them birth their babies.Further informationLearn more about Christian's research into pregnancy and birthDiscover the program to train women as Djakamirr, to help Yolŋu women give birth on their own countryChristian also recommends the book Why Warriors Lie Down and Die by Richard Trudgen as a valuable resource on Indigenous AustraliaTo 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.

When he was a young boy in South Africa, Professor Mark Solms watched his older brother fall from a roof and crack his skull.His brother survived but was greatly changed by the injuries to his brain. The incident planted in Mark a deep desire to understand how a person's brain shapes them. CW: contains description of a medical procedure

Jeffrey tells stories of grit, brilliance and tragedy behind the making of the smash hit musicals 'Rent' and 'Hamilton'

In 1978 Australian Robina Courtin became one of the first westerners to be ordained as a Buddhist nun. Then a letter from a young prisoner in a California jail began a huge change in her own story (R)

Palm Island, Mer Island, and Australia are the cornerstones of Rachael's work as an actor and a director (R)

Simone Sheridan on working at the coalface of Australia's Covid-19 pandemic

When Admiral Chris Barrie retired as the Chief of the Defence Force, he became increasingly concerned about life for veterans with PTSD. Then he discovered certain psychedelic drugs were being used to literally change mindsChris Barrie was 15 when he joined the Royal Australian Navy.He spent 41 years in the navy, and eventually rose to become Chief of the Australian Defence Force, a role he held when 9/11 happened.Since retiring Chris has become increasingly concerned about veterans suffering from PTSD.A few years ago he discovered that psychedelic drugs are being used in other countries to successfully treat it.Chris is now convinced that the Australian Government should legalise the clinical use of specific psychedelics to help veterans recovering from trauma.To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversation 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.Further informationLearn more about the work of FearLess

After Rick Morton was unexpectedly diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder he set out on a year-long mission to rediscover love

When Helen Jukes was given a colony of bees they helped release her from the numbing grind of her working life (R)

Thriller writer Helen Fitzgerald on her life as a social worker inside some of Scotland's toughest prisons

Choir master Stephen Taberner was raised a Christadelphian, but in his adult life he celebrates the pleasure of music (R)

Candy Baker was a cash-strapped single mum with too many horses when she moved to the hills outside Byron Bay and discovered a new way of communicating with her herd

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)

Deborah Prior was one of more than 2000 mixed-race babies born to white British women and black American GI's during WWII. As an adult, she finally found her birth mother again under strange circumstances (CW: discussion of adoption, discretion advised)

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

When Caroline O'Connor was told she had 'too much personality' for the ballet, she turned to musical theatre and braved cattle calls and years of working as an understudy in order to make it on Broadway and London's West End

Tom Gilling with the story of how a Scottish-born soldier named Jock McLaren became one of Australia's greatest World War II guerrilla fighters

Bill began his dream job as the ABC's China Correspondent in 2015. Five years later, seven State Security police officers visited him in the middle of the night to tell him he was barred from leaving the country

Sean Dooley's passion for birdwatching began with the coo of a spotted turtle dove. Decades later he broke the Australian birdwatching record (R)

When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, and Uluru, he unearthed new evidence about an 86-year old cold case *CW: For our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners please be advised that today’s conversation contains the voice and names of people who have died.

Serafina Tanè was born into a doomsday cult led by a charismatic and abusive man who claimed he'd been abducted by aliens

Eight thrilling encounters in and on the water, as told by previous Conversations guests (R)

Danielle Clode with the story of the adventurous Jeanne Barrett, a French peasant from Burgundy who became the first woman to sail around the world

Political reporter Jonathan Swan with the inside story of Donald Trump’s last few months in office

Stuart Kells' life as a bibliophile began with one ancient, leather-bound, blue book (R)

Cosmologist Tamara Davis on the complicated scientific quest to explore and colonise the Red Planet

After Kim Scott became a teacher and a father, he started looking for his Aboriginal family *CW: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners please use discretion when listening as the following program references people who have died.

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

The late Mary Wilson rose up from Detroit's housing projects to find worldwide fame with The Supremes (R)

Avi Loeb was Harvard's top astronomer when he became intrigued by reports of a pancake-shaped object the size of a football field hurtling through our solar system

Sue Ellen Kusher’s father was an ASIO agent, and she and her siblings were taught to memorise number plates, spot unusual behaviour, and keep the family business secret at all costs

Ocean racing navigator Will Oxley first learned his trade through celestial navigation, using a sextant and the stars. He then began ocean racing around the world, and in 1998, he found himself upside down in a storm-wrecked Bass Strait

Warren Brown with the story of the fever sparked by claims of a gold reef in the Central Australian desert during the Great Depression (R)

Georgina Godwin grew up in Zimbabwe with a father who was the model of a British gentleman. Many years after she fled Africa for London, she discovered his secret identity

Art detective Arthur Brand met neo-Nazis, billionaire collectors and underground art dealers on his hunt for the two enormous bronze horse sculptures once owned by HitlerArthur Brand is an art sleuth based in Amsterdam.His clients ask him to find stolen works of art, and to find out whether a painting or sculpture being sold on the black market is the real thing. One day, he received an email with an image attached of two gigantic horse sculptures.The unknown owner of these statues was claiming that they had once belonged to Adolf Hitler and had stood outside his chancellery building in Berlin. This led Arthur into a murky world of black market art dealers, billionaire collectors, and Neo-Nazis. Further informationHitler's Horses will be published by Penguin on February 16To 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.