Conversations

Uncle Jack was forcibly removed from his mother as a baby and denied his Aboriginality. A one-off trip to Fitzroy connected him with a family he didn’t know about, and promptly landed him in jail (R)

Europe's startling deep past explained: pygmy dinosaurs, blue-eyed Neanderthals; and how an asteroid the size of Manhattan ruptured everything (R)

The Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less was working as an odd-jobs man for an Italian Baroness when a phone call upended his life (R)

Walking through grief and facing up to life on the Pacific Crest Trail, the true story of Wild (R)

Celebrated British poet Lemn Sissay grew up not knowing his given name or his Ethiopian parents. His life was shaped by being adopted, and then raised in state care (R)

James explains the traditions, language and pleasures of shepherding in England's Lake District (R)

When Darleen Bungey set out to uncover her father's past she discovered a Hollywood heartthrob and a singer whose records outsold Bing Crosby's

Maira's daily life as a New York-based artist who likes to paint trees, dogs and hats, and why the contents of her mother's closet became famous

One of the world's only master paint-makers, David Coles on how he found a life creating colours like Lapis Blue and Rose Madder (R)

On 9/11 Captain Beverley Bass diverted her American Airlines jet to a tiny town in Newfoundland, along with thousands of other airspace refugees (R)

Dr Culum Brown's work on fish cognition has proven fish have long memories, sharks have friends, and sting rays know when it's the weekend

Miranda's story from growing up in Kakadu National Park as a Larrakia Tiwi girl, to finding fame in The Sapphires, and co-creating Top End Wedding, the first romantic comedy set in the Northern Territory

Sheila Heti on the life of Finnish writer Tove Jansson who created the Moomins, and some of her own reflections on her choice about whether or not to become a mother

Helen recently published her diaries from the years 1978 to 1987. They include her thoughts on writing and work, parenting, love affairs, and the quest for the right pair of shoes (R)

Rutger Bregman takes a new look at the accepted idea that humans are just one disaster away from bad behaviour. He says our species' survival has long depended on the best aspects of our nature, such as kindness and the sharing of ideas

When Hayley moved to a cattle property to live with her farmer girlfriend, the rural idyll wasn't quite as she imagined

A new conversation with the Irish novelist, on what it means to be a grown up, and standing her ground on Ireland’s moral questions

Young Robert Lukins modelled himself on the fictional character Adrian Mole, a prodigious reader and writer (R)

Sandy was teaching at a school in the English countryside when he set off in a Mirror dinghy, intending to sail as far as Gloucester (R)

How a group of financiers from a poor and damp island on the outer rim of Europe created a private company which came to rule India (R)

Tony Wilson was always drawn to the world's great speeches. Then, without warning, he was called on to make the most difficult speech of his life

Naomi is an American poet and author living in San Antonio, Texas. Her family story is marked by life-changing coincidences, and narrow escapes

How Shannon Molloy survived the worst year of his life, as a gay teenager at an all boys' school on the coast of Central Queensland

A much-loved performer digs into the challenging truth of her father's past (R)

While confined to a hospital room for months with a rare form of tuberculosis, Christiaan found love and an entirely new path in life

Tom Keneally with the story of Edward 'Plorn' Dickens who was sent to live in Australia when he was sixteen in the hope he might redeem himself

In 2015, Sydney boxer Davey died of brain swelling after he was knocked out in the ring. When journalist and boxer Stephanie Convery reported on the inquest, she found a sport in a collective state of denial

When therapist Lori Gottlieb found herself in therapy after a devastating breakup, she began to rethink her own life story

A songwriter's songwriter, John turned his often bemused view of people and politics into songs for fifty years (R)

Astronaut Jim Bagian on working, eating and sleeping in micro-gravity while orbiting the earth at 28 000 kilometres an hour

Kate Leaver became fascinated by the curative qualities of dogs after her Shih Tzu Bertie helped her through her darkest days

Biographer Ann Blainey with the tale of Smithy, king of the Milky Way, and his audacious flight across the Pacific in his plane the Southern Cross (R)

How a lifetime exploring different landscapes inspires the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, who's also one of the world's most prolific writers (R)

Walking the Sahara, towards the fabled city of Timbuktu and into Niger (R)

A breathtaking Saharan adventure: camels, bandits and one fearless woman (R)

A writer recalls the precious stretch of time between the birth of his son, and the death of his father (R)

The author of bestselling novel, Pachinko, explores the lives of generations of Koreans in Japan (R)

Thanks to her dad’s hand-drawn map, a shopping trip Sarah Kanowski made for her parents during the Covid-19 crisis gladdened hearts on social media around the world. In this father-daughter chat, meet Sarah’s dad, 89-year-old Peter Kanowski

Social researcher Hugh Mackay on the many ways Australian society can pull together while we're meant to live apart

Australia's storyteller in song on poems he's loved since childhood, and how reading and learning great poetry has changed his song writing (R)

Ray was a coal miner when an accident underground left him lying prone in a tunnel a kilometre beneath the earth. What he did next changed the course of his life

After journalist Julia Baird survived a terrible bout of cancer, she began to think about what sustains us when the world goes dark

John Hockney grew up in an unconventional family of five siblings in post-war Yorkshire. As a child, his brother David drew constantly on any paper he could find. He grew up to become the world's most famous living artist

When Daniel Mendelsohn signed up for a Mediterranean cruise to Ithaca with his aging father, neither of them could have predicted what would happen next

Bill Bailey's passion for twitching began as boy growing up in England's west country (R)

Stories of imagination, poetry and menace while living in captivity, from Kari Gislason and Candice Fox

How a flash of insight about her life saw Liz upend almost everything in it

Sarah Brown always wanted to be a remote area nurse. Then she began a medical revolution (R)

Jan Becker on saving the lives of newborn babies in the 'golden minute' after birth (R)

Psychiatrist Graham Martin learned a lot of new things about medicine when he unexpectedly and painfully became the patient (R)