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Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met. Journey into their world, joining them on epic adventures to unfamiliar places, back in time to wild moments of history, and into their deepest memories, to be moved by personal stories of resilience and redemption.

Hosted by Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski, Conversations is the ABC's most popular long-form interview program. Every day we explore the vast tapestry of human experience, weaving together narratives from history, science, art, and personal storytelling.

Conversations Live is coming to the stage! Join Sarah Kanowski and Richard Fidler for an unmissable night of unforgettable stories, behind-the-scenes secrets, and surprise guests. Australia’s most-loved podcast — live, up close, and in the moment. Find out more at the Conversations website.

Conversations

Writer, Ianto Ware with the story of growing up in the suburbs of Adelaide with his radical, feminist, lesbian mother, Dimity. (R)

Ianto Ware was raised in the suburbs of Adelaide in a house surrounded by a tangled garden of oak trees and vegetables, and furniture foraged from hard rubbish.

Aside from the family pets, it was just Ianto and Dimity at home.

His family was different to most in his street, as his mother Dimity described herself as a 'radical feminist socialist lesbian'.

Dimity wore dungarees, and for some of Ianto's childhood, she drove a campervan with a yellow kayak on the roof, with a rainbow cat sticker on the bonnet of the van.

As she was raising Ianto alone, Dimity knew that it was very likely she would not live to old age, because of a health condition she was born with.

Ianto has written down the story his mother's remarkable life, and her legacy.

Further information

Originally broadcast June 2021. This episode was recorded remotely, during COVID.

Mother and I: The fable of a wilful family was published by Hunter Publishing.

Read more about Ianto on his website.

https://iantoware.com.au/about/

This episode of Conversations was produced by Nicola Harrison. The Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.

This episode explores single mothers, queer mothers, lesbian, gardening, rainbow families, unusual families, being different, how it feels to be different, when you don't fit in, is it ok to be different, Adelaide, Dunstan, mother and son, single parent family, single parent, single child family, kidney disease, kidney transplant, death of a mother, death of a parent, orphan, strong mothers, only child, one and done, amicable separation, amicable divorce, good divorce, adult son and chronic illness.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Encore: The story of a wild, radical feminist socialist lesbian mum, and her son

Kate Reid inherited her love of Formula 1 from her dad. She put her heart and soul into qualifying for a job with the renowned racing team, Williams, but her dream job turned out very differently to what she expected. Then, a public library turned out to be a bridge to Kate's recovery.

Growing up in Melbourne, Kate was an asthmatic child who developed an extremely close bond with her dad.

He would care for Kate during her frequent asthma attacks by operating a whirring nebuliser, staying next to her as she regained her breath in her bed.

Kate became obsessed with her dad’s favourite sport — Formula 1 racing. 

Once Kate experienced the vibration ripping through her body at a race, she decided she would become an aerospace engineer and work in the area she and her dad loved so much.

When her dream job turned turned sour, Kate’s life took a dangerous turn and she developed depression and anorexia.

Kate returned to Australia for treatment, and it was thanks to a public library in Melbourne that she started on the next obsession, the one that would heal her.

Kate's croissanterie, Lune, is now a thriving business.

Further information

Destination Moon is published by Simon & Schuster.

If you need support with an eating disorder, you can visit the Butterfly Foundation or call on 1800 33 4673.

https://butterfly.org.au/

This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan. The Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores eating disorders, disordered eating, pain au chocolat, Paris, Ousia, hospitality, hospo, cafe culture, croissants, start up, self made, CEO, life of a CEO, France, pastry chef, laminated pastries, obsession, control, perfection, perfectionism, tin tin, sibling love, family support, tight family unit, Du Pain et des Idées, boulangerie, Christophe Vasseur, changing careers, formula 1, formula one, racing, motorsports, pit crew and Monaco.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

How Paris helped this aerospace engineer survive anorexia

Walter Marsh with the surreal tale of Colin Wyatt, the ski champion, mountaineer, wartime camouflage expert, artist, and naturalist who committed one of the world's biggest-ever museum heists in the 1940s.

In January 1947, by chance, it was found that over 3,000 rare and precious specimens of butterflies had vanished from museums in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. 

Alarmingly, the missing insects included many priceless ‘holotypes’ — the first specimen of a given species to be identified, against which all others are compared.

On the other side of the world, New Scotland Yard descended on a nondescript country house in Surrey, where they found a trove of over 40,000 butterfly specimens. 

The culprit was Colin Wyatt, a Cambridge-educated ski champion, mountaineer, wartime camouflage expert, artist, and amateur naturalist whose high-flying exploits cut a path from the Alps of Europe to a London court room to a final expedition to the jungles of Guatemala.

Walter Marsh has written down the strange and confounding tale of the gentleman butterfly thief in his new book.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Jennifer Leake, executive producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores museum heists, museum thefts, gentlemen criminals, natural history, lepidopterists, butterflies, butterfly stealing,adventurers, skiing, mountaineering, war, WWII, alps, london, stealing from a museum, theft from museum, famous museum heists, strange criminals, smooth criminals, why do people commit crime, collectors, the collector, extreme collections.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

The strange tale of the artist who stole 3000 butterflies

Katie Treble grew up crying at about how all the king's horses and men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. It was that compassion that made her the perfect candidate for doctoring during war as an adult.

When Dr Katie Treble decided to swap the good vibes and beautiful beaches of Byron Bay for work with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) she knew she would be in for a shock. 

Nothing could have prepared her for the desperate need she encountered in the Central African Republic (CAR) in the midst of a civil war.

But Katie was even more affected by the courage and kindness of her colleagues.

She came away from her months in Bria, CAR knowing that her time as a humanitarian doctor would change her own life in deep ways, and so when she got back to Australia she started the work of trying to make sense of it all.

Field Notes from Death's Door is published by HarperCollins.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris, executive producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores medicine, university, war, civil war, Africa, humanitarian crisis, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, MSF, doctors without borders, access to medicine, hospital, conflict zones, PTSD, malaria, defence, navy, Kenya, France, Jamaica, Haiti, natural disaster, murder, infant mortality rate, vaccination, religious war, Islam, Christianity, genocide, MDMA therapy, psychology, recovery, healing.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Why this humanitarian doctor swapped Byron Bay for a war zone and what happened next

Aaron was living on the tip of Cape York when he borrowed his uncle’s dinghy to make it to his first acting audition on nearby Thursday Island.

He won the role that day in a TV show called Remote Area Nurse, and many other TV series followed, including the crime dramas The Straits and East West 101.

He also presented the Torres Strait Island Cooking show, Strait to the Plate, and he was one of the stars of the comedy show Black Comedy.

Today Aaron is not just an actor, he's a director and producer as well and as he writes about in his memoir So Far, So Good, there have been many setbacks and some heartbreak on his path to success.

Further information

So Far, So Good is published by Pantera Press

This episode of Conversations explores Cape York, acting, writing, producing, television, film, domestic violence, children, rejection, family, domestic violence protection order, logie awards, masculinity, relationships, racism.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Encore: Aaron Fa’Aoso on his mistakes, heartaches, and lucky breaks

The singer, podcaster, writer and comedian on living big with neurodivergence, and owning her manic, creative energy.

Growing up in Melbourne in the 1980s, Em was a serious young athlete, focused on hurdles, when a high kick up-ended her ambitions. 

She was a creative, energetic child who seemed to always be busier than everyone else. 

As a young, stay-at-home mum, Em appeared on Australian Idol, having never performed on stage before, and this opportunity launched her career in radio.

Em and her husband had two more children and she found herself at a loss during COVID lockdowns.

Em felt she was drowning, and couldn’t work out why things had always seemed so much harder for her than for those around her.

As an adult, Em received two life-changing diagnoses, all while being put through the wringer of perimenopause.

Em's book Blood, Sweat and Glitter: A Coming of Middle Age Story is published by Pantera Press.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan. The Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

This episode explores ADHD, neurodivergence, autism, diamond creek, emsolation, emsolation extra, outgrown, diagnostic trifecta, Anomalous, podcast, rage against the vagine, covid lockdowns, melbourne lockdowns, DSM 5, neuropsychologist, National Press Club, National Press Club address, impostor syndrome, sensory issues, autistic females, Quinni, Heartbreak High, jumping on the bandwagon, menopause, perimenopause, hormones, hormonal shift, executive function, autistic, hormone treatment, iron deficient, low iron and middle age women.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

‘Maximalist power queen’ Em Rusciano on the diagnoses that revealed her

From fairground palmistry to the science of fingerprinting, historian Alison Bashford explores the secrets, history and psychology of the hand.

Alison was in a London library when she discovered a ginormous palm print of a gorilla, taken two days after it died at London Zoo in the 1930s.

She had no idea whatsoever about why someone had made this mysterious print, or why it had been kept in pristine condition for all these years.

Alison plunged into researching the history of the hand, from fairground palm reading to Jungian analysis.

She was transported into the magical, scientific and pseudo-scientific attitudes to markings on the body.

She encountered Victorian wellness entrepreneurs, how Down Syndrome was first diagnosed in neonates, and celebrity palm readers whose influence reached all the way to former British Prime Minister, William Gladstone.

Further information

Alison's book Decoding The Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic is published by The University of Chicago Press.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan. The Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

This episode explores gypsies, Roma, palm reading, fortune telling, psychology, psychoanalysis, Charlotte Wolff, Carl Jung, Weimar Germany, Nazi Germany, Brahmin, palmistry, cheiromancy, Cheiro, writing a book, university, Hollywood, 1930s Hollywood, celebrity, Down Syndrome, diagnosis, genetics, eugenics, Lionel Penrose, BBC, simian line, occult, Francis Galton, Ellis Family and British Institute for Mental Science.

Telling the future and the past through the palm

Helen Goh's life story began with a complicated childhood — and blossomed into one about culture, cake and the meaning of life.

Helen was born in Malaysia in the year of the Fire Horse. This zodiac birth year was a big threat to the Gohs, and her parents had to make a heartbreaking decision that would affect the family for a generation.

The Gohs eventually immigrated to Australia, and Helen went on to sell pharmaceuticals to doctors, before she pursued her honours in psychology.

A stint as a cafe owner followed, then Helen went back to basics as a chef's apprentice in Melbourne.

She followed her heart to London, and encountered an 'Aladdin's cave' of goodies in a deli in Notting Hill, which was owned by Yotam Ottolenghi.

Helen has come to understand the psychological benefits of baking, and now interweaves two of her life's enduring interests.

Helen's book Baking and The Meaning of Life is published by Murdoch Books.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan. The Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

This episode explores insecure attachment, attachment styles, coherence, purpose and significance in life, so you think horse, Yotam Ottolenghi, Year of the Fire horse, Notting Hill, Helen Goh's chocolate cake, Helen Goh recipes, baking for charity, raising money, bake sales, two careers, how to have two careers, baker, baker and psychologist, studying psychology, lemon curd, Women's Weekly, Malaysia, Nonya, Nyonya, foster child, fostering children, complicated family, raising Jewish boys, sweet, cookbook and cooking.

Cakes, Ottolenghi and the Fire Horse child

Wendy Harmer has enjoyed huge success over four decades as a comedian, tv host and as a radio presenter. A long way from her origins in country Victoria, where she was born with a facial disfigurement, into a struggling family.

When her mother left, Wendy often had to look after her young siblings.

After her talent for writing was spotted by a lecturer at Deakin University, Wendy became a cadet journalist at the Geelong Advertiser.

And then Wendy's life was transformed one night in Melbourne when she saw stand-up comedy for the first time and decided to try it 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.

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.

Further information

Wendy's memoir is called Lies My Mirror Told Me

This episode of Conversations was produced by Nicola Harrison, the Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.It explores family, separation, cleft lip and palate, facial surgery, siblings, poverty, alcoholism, physical abuse, journalism, comedy, broadcasting, writing for children, country Victoria, stand up comedy, television, memoir.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Encore: Wendy Harmer on overcoming her fractured childhood

Historian and bookseller Edmund Goldrick on the hair-raising, forgotten tale of the escaped Australian prisoners of war who stumbled into another, hidden genocide, and tried to stop it.

Early in the World War Two, Australian soldiers who had been captured by the Germans escaped by leaping from a moving train.

They found themselves in unfamiliar territory, in the lands of Yugoslavia.

The Australians on the run found themselves in the company of dangerous men, who planned to use the cover of war to commit genocide.

One of the Australians fell in with a Serbian Royalist group, and when he discovered their leader’s plans, he acted as a double agent in their ranks, determined to find a way to warn the Allies that their man in Serbia was determined to conduct mass murder.

Anzac Guerillas is published by Hachette.

Edmund will be giving a talk on Remembrance Day at the Goulburn Library, and again on Saturday, 6 December at Sydney's Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores war, POWs, Germany, former Yugoslavia, Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, Catholic, Orthodox, Roma people, Jewish, Islamic, Chetniks, Partisans, genocide, civil war, death, escape, spies, double agents, allied forces, war crimes, international war tribunal, guerilla warfare, murder, assassination, holocaust, Italy, Greece, fascism, tyranny, Bosnia, Nazi, Hitler.

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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Why these prisoners of war wished they never escaped 'from the bloody train'

Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024.

Anita Heiss is a Wiradjuri woman and a prolific author. Her latest novel, Dirrayawadha, brings together Indigenous and colonial history, as well as Wiradjuri language, into a 19th century love story between an Irish convict and a brave Wiradjuri woman. 

Anita Heiss is a Wiradjuri woman, an author of many books and a Professor of Communications at The University of Queensland.

Many of Anita's books focus on great love stories, and the inspiration for these romances came from the enduring, devoted love she saw between her parents – the very Austrian “Joe-the-carpenter”, and Elsie, a proud Wiradjuri woman.

Anita’s latest book goes back to the 1800s, bringing to life the brutal frontier wars in Bathurst, when martial law was declared.

Her book is called Dirrayawadha - which is a Wiradjuri command meaning 'rise up'. 

This episode of Conversations contains discussions about authors, novels, romance, adventure, politics, Australian history, Indigenous history, Aboriginal culture, Indigenous languages, academics, universities, parents, childhood, marriage, multiculturalism, racism, Sydney, Bathurst, frontier wars, convicts, first nations, Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

Best of 2024 — Anita Heiss

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