Conversations

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)

When working with people experiencing homelessness, Erin Longbottom looks to their strengths to help them find their way to health, and a home (R)

Abolishing iodine deficiency throughout the world was this doctor's mission (R)

Travelling Australia with her husband Slim Dusty brought challenges and rewards

Tanya Bretherton tells the story of the victims whose killings were largely ignored by police, and whose fate haunted the streets of eastern Sydney

When Siobhan McHugh set out to write a history of Australia's Snowy Scheme, she unearthed stories of pugnacious unionists, drowned towns and a love story on a laundry floor (R)

The warm, funny and slightly terrifying Angela Lansbury opens up about her seven-decade long career on stage and screen (R)

After she was trolled online, Ginger Gorman turned to face her attackers, and developed a completely new understanding of why people abuse others online

A donation of land and $10 was all Australian-born Gemma needed to establish The School of St Jude in Tanzania

As Jean negotiated the maze of caring for her ageing parents, she began collecting the information she found useful, as well as asking herself and others deeper questions about aged care

The fairies of Ireland's folk culture were capricious twilight creatures who could bestow favour or grave misfortune (R)

Doctor Karen Hitchcock peers into the culture of modern medicine, from the flu season to female viagra, to dementia and the humble sick day

Jamie Susskind on how digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics and virtual reality are transforming our political systems

Extraordinary survivor Sohaila Abdulali was seventeen when she was gang raped and forced to fight for her life (R)

Mark is an experienced consultant psychiatrist who also suffers from Australia's most common mental health condition, anxiety. His direct insight helps him understand how people with anxiety can thrive at work and in lifeMark is a consultant psychiatrist with thirty years' experience, a senior university lecturer, and specialist in the mental health of young people.He came to public attention in Australia through the landmark ABC TV series, Changing Minds.The series went inside Campbelltown Hospital’s mental health facility where Mark was senior psychiatrist at the time, and in charge of the youth ward. Away from work, Mark's suffered from anxiety his whole life, as did his mother and grandmother.Anxiety is extremely common in Australia, with up to one in four people suffering at some time in their lives.Even so, Mark says for medical professionals, disclosing a mental health condition remains especially difficult.But it does give him direct insight into navigating life and work with this pernicious condition.Further informationAnxiety is published by ABC BooksListen to Mark's 2016 interview with Richard FidlerExplore a collection of our conversations with mental health professionalsMental health servicesFind the mental health service you needSANE AustraliaIf you need to talk, you can phone Lifeline 24/ 7 Phone 13 11 14Bushfire Recovery Phone 13 43 57To 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.

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

Biologist David George Haskell on how he discovered the unique songs of trees, and the way they interconnect (R)

Julia Stevens was one of Australia's top triathletes when doctors told her they needed to implant a tiny defibrillator inside her chest wall to keep her alive

Matt on his Brisbane childhood, losing his mum at the age of 12, and how a chance conversation with his university drama teacher altered the course of his life

Jackie has lived in the Araluen Valley of NSW for 46 years, where powerful owls boom through the nights and lyrebirds scratch up the garden. In recent months hundreds of native animals have arrived, seeking shelter from Australia's worst-ever fires

For a time, surf-loving athlete Nick Marshall was a professional Ironman. Then he created a new way for kids with special needs to be included at the beach

Ronni Kahn saved 45,000 tonnes of food from landfill and changed how we think about food waste

Eric on life before and after Monty Python's Flying Circus (R)

Mike was 15 when he left school to chip weeds in a Queensland vineyard. Forty years later he found himself in Portugal holding one of the world's oldest grapevines trying to discover if grapes can survive global warming.

When Thea was hired as a nurse on one of the largest cattle runs in the world, the job expanded to include hostessing and saving cows with clover bloat. In 1975 she was at Wave Hill Station when Gough Whitlam handed the Indigenous owners back their land

Margie Bale's car is loaded with ultrasounds, milk crates and angle grinders. All the things needed when you're tending to 7-foot tall camels in the middle of nowhere without a clinic in sight

How WWI helped a homeless vagabond named Adolf Hitler become the dictator of the German Reich (R)

Michelle Garnaut on how she began one of the world's most famous restaurants in communist-era Shanghai (R)

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

In 1990 Lorenzo shocked Sydney society by leaving heiress Primrose Dunlop at the altar in Venice to run off with his best man. But behind the headlines was an epic love story which began in the Vietnam War

When doctors told Benny Agius her baby son had Down syndrome, she was full of anxiety about his future. Then Richard grew up to defy everyone's expectations

The opioid crisis is destroying hundreds of thousands of American lives and Beth Macy has been up close to it (R)