Conversations

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)

Judith was an Australian who found screen stardom in 1940s Hollywood, and has since became a lesbian icon. Biographer Desley Deacon tells her story

Nature photographer Gary Cranitch on his working life floating off the Great Barrier Reef to capture a split-second image of the 'biggest orgy on the planet'

Steve Bevington talks about his years in the thick of an underground movement of London squatters, who would break into abandoned buildings, change the locks and claim them as their own

Former politician Robert Tickner grew up in country NSW, 'showered with love' by his adoptive parents. When he began the search for his biological mum Maida in his 40s, he discovered she'd been much closer than he ever knew

Mathematician Geordie Williamson spent eight years cracking the code to find the weight of atoms in space (R)

Space archaeologist Dr Alice Gorman on the unexpected artefacts of the space age (R)

Jamie Simmonds on the successful relocation of Grantham, Queensland after it was destroyed by catastrophic flooding

When an inland tsunami smashed into a rural Queensland town in January 2011, people were killed and the town destroyed. Jamie Simmonds became the right-hand-man of Mayor Steve Jones, and they led an audacious recovery project

Historian Nick Richardson on the year that changed Australia forever

Rick Shine used one toad to defeat another, by a process of evolutionary conditioning, to save the snakes he was studying in Northern Australia (R)

William wanders through stories of fatherhood, from growing up in Queensland in the 1970s, to raising his own children as a single dad (R)William is one of Australia's best-known storytellers and actors.As his children became adults, he began to reflect on what it means to be a father.William’s dad was a gregarious character, a veteran of World War II, who ran a hire business in Queensland.Despite the many colourful names his father coined for him, William remembers his dad as a very loving father, even when he, William, might have been 'a boofhead'.William's been thinking about the memories he's creating in the minds of of his own kids, particularly after the death of his wife some years ago.Further informationOriginal broadcast 31 July 2018Fatherhood: Stories about being a dad is published by HachetteListen to Richard's conversation with William McInnes from 2017 on life after the death of his wife, Sarah WattTo 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.

Benjamin Gilmour describes the hectic work of saving lives, and what it's like to bring people back from the brink of suicide

How a young woman fell under the spell of spiritual cult leaders in the 1970s

Sean was the first hearing baby to be born to his mother’s family in four generations. He became an Auslan interpreter, and an instantly recognisable figure during Australia's bushfire crisis

Claire grew up running wild in the Banksia forests of Southern Western Australia. As an adult she had a period of homelessness, living on the streets of Melbourne. After learning the truth of her family's story, Claire found her focus

Megan Phelps-Roper grew up inside the notorious Westboro Baptist Church family. In 2012 she left the church, and her family, to live in the world she once reviled

Bryan’s played more than 80 roles on stage and screen. Raised in working-class Sydney, his talent, hard work, and unmistakable presence have been his ticket to the world (R)

Left totally blind by treatment he received as a premature baby, Ron credits technology, love, and good timing with his success in life and the law (R)

Archie tells of writing Took the Children Away and playing it in public for the first time, of his belated reunion with his siblings, and his love story with Ruby Hunter (R)