Conversations

Sophie Matterson fell in love with camels at first sniff. After working with them for years, she hatched a plan to walk across the vast Australian continent with five humped companions - Jude, Delilah, Charlie, Clayton and Mac

Dean Laws was in his 50s when doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease. For a time, he was devastated. Then he formed a running crew with his friends called 'The Dean Team', and made a plan to run the Sydney Marathon

Barry Humphries was a legend of the screen and stage, but throughout his career, he remained astonished at the success of Dame Edna and her enduring appeal

Annette Trevitt with a tale of real estate, family and complicated grief set in the Pilbara mining town of Karratha

He's one of the world's most acclaimed opera stars, but Teddy Tahu Rhodes did everything he could, for a very long time, to avoid his destiny on stage (R)

Om Dhungel grew up in Bhutan, where his people became the target of a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign. Overnight Om became a refugee, eventually rebuilding his life and family in his beloved new home of Blacktown

Jackie Huggins with the story of her father Jack, who was a surf lifesaver, a rugby league player, a soldier taken prisoner in the Fall of Singapore, and the first Indigenous Australian to work in the post office (R)

Only six men, out of thousands, survived the horrors of the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Bill Sticpewich was one of them

When Bronwen Edward's big brother Mark took his own life, she decided to channel her grief into something much bigger than herself

Zoologist Milly Formby serendipitously became passionate about shorebirds while working as a tapestry weaver. She decided to learn how to fly, build her own plane and follow their path around Australia

High school English teacher, Brendan James Murray with funny, heartbreaking, inspirational and strange tales from his working life (R)

Danijel Malbasa grew up in an ethnically-mixed family in the former Yugoslavia. When the country was on the precipice of war, the Malbasa family was metaphorically and literally torn apart

Journalist Jackie Dent explores the the world of anatomists and dissectors, the people who open up human cadavers to uncover their secrets

Parenting expert Maggie Dent on on how parents can raise confident and well-adjusted girls

Writer Susan Johnson was in her 60s when she decided to make a new life on the Greek Island of Kythera, with her 85-year old mother Barbara along for the adventure 

Matt Hall made his first solo flight at 15 years old and has been addicted to life in the air ever since. He became a top gun fighter pilot and after serving for more than 20 years, he still hasn't come down to earth

Phil Kafcaloudes grew up hearing stories about his legendary grandmother, who became a spy for the British in World War Two. It was even said she killed a man to protect her secret

Charlotte was Australia's first children's author. She came to the colony of NSW from London in 1826, and now her trailblazing, tragic and dramatic life story has been written by her descendants, Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell (R)

From Charlie Brown to Franz Kafka, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen explores why being a loser can be a good thing

Billy Bragg grew up in working-class Barking, east of London. The expected path was to go from school to the local car factory, but Billy his sights set further, and even a brief stint in the army couldn’t keep him away from a life in music

Gillian has the best job in the world — travelling overseas to bake sumptuous and heartfelt wedding cakes, using foraged and fresh produce to tell a couple's story through taste, texture and fragrance. Cake has been a staple in Gillian's life, through immigration, adventure and loss (R)

Micronations are home to fascinating, often eccentric characters who construct their self-declared countries in their own image, with pomp, pageantry and passports to boot.

Max Beck had a wild, lively and at times devastating childhood, growing up in Bendigo's old Crown Hotel

Roland Breckwoldt fell in love with the idea of being a cowboy as a child, so at 15 he railed against his strict German father's wishes, left home and found himself in the majesty of the Queensland outback

Over her many decades as a practising psychiatrist, Veronica O'Keane developed a fascination for our memory, how it functions in the brain, and the role it has in shaping our identity