Conversations

Writer Emily Maguire on losing her own faith, but finding awe and inspiration in a controversial myth about a female pontiff who some people believe sat disguised on the papal throne for two years in the ninth century. Writer Emily Maguire grew up in a very Christian home, where life revolved around the Church and prayer. By the time she was in her late teens, Emily had well and truly rebelled aga...

Jelena Dokic overcame adversity, poverty and violence to rise to the top of the tennis world. Years later, her revelations about her father's abuse stunned the world. (CW: discussion of domestic violence and coercive control). Jelena Dokic overcame adversity, poverty and violence to rise to the top of the tennis world. Years later, her revelations about her father's abuse stunned the world. (CW: d...

Lee Berger, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and real-life Indiana Jones with tales of his hominid discoveries, many of which have rewritten the story of palaeoanthropology. (R) National Geographic Explorer in Residence, Lee Berger, entered the field of palaeoanthropology when there was an infinitesimally tiny chance he would discover anything, while digging around South Africa. But this...

As Andrew Dwyer ventured further into the desert, he fell in love with the people and the landscape. He battled sandstorms, floods and isolation to serve fine foods under the stars. When Andrew Dwyer was growing up in 1960s Melbourne, the city wasn't the foodie destination it is now, in fact it was often described as a "culinary wasteland". But luckily for Andrew, his Czechoslovakian godfather and...

An impulse decision to buy a home in the rainforest results in a comedy of errors involving a python in the roof, an unexpected tax bill, two reality TV shows discussing bowel movements with Shane Warne. (R) Akmal Saleh doesn't like the jungle or rainforests, or any of the animals in the jungle or rainforest.  Akmal likes cafes and running water, which made the comedian's purchase of a cabin in th...

Athlete Gerrard Gosens didn't realise he was blind until his first day at primary school. His adventurous spirit led him to become a three time Paralympian, climb Mt Everest, swim the English Channel, and perform the rhumba on Dancing With The Stars. This conversation talks about family life, family history, childhood memories, origin stories, training, medical procedures, surgery, mountaineering,...

How a Birmingham boy became best-selling thriller writer, Lee Child, and the creator of one of the literary world's most popular loners. (R) James Grant grew up in Birmingham when it was a bustling industrial city. While huge workforces would pour of the factories as men ended their shifts and headed home on bicycles, for children, there wasn't much to do. Young James often found himself at the li...

Dr Tracy Westerman grew up in the Pilbara, where suicide and mental health issues have deeply scarred Indigenous communities. So this Nyamal woman decided to do something about it. Nyamal woman Tracy Westerman grew up in some of the most remote parts of Western Australia, moving from a station to a town called Useless Loop, eventually landing in the mining town of Tom Price. Tracy, the daughter of...

Michael Visontay with the true tale of how fragments of a rare Gutenberg Bible were sold off, leaf by leaf, in New York in the 1920s, and how the sale of these books, chapters and verses changed the course of his own family. Some years ago journalist Michael Visontay was researching his family history when he stumbled upon the story of a man named Gabriel Wells, who had been a New York book dealer...

Legendary cook, author, food producer and educator Maggie Beer had a circuitous path to the food world, which began when she left school at 14. (R) Legendary cook, author, food producer and educator Maggie Beer grew up in Lakemba in South-West Sydney, and got her first job when she was 14 years old. Maggie had to leave school early to go out to work to help support her family after her father's bu...

In 2024 Nate Byrne went from presenting the weather to making the news when he acknowledged live on air that he was experiencing a panic attack. Keeping cool under pressure is a skill Nate developed in his first career as a Naval Officer, and perhaps also from his days as a go-go dancer in a Perth nightclub. Nate Byrne is the Weather Presenter on ABC News Breakfast. In August this year Nate went f...

Chef Ben Shewry grew up on a farm in New Zealand where his family grew or hunted most of their own food. Ben was 10 when he started working in restaurants and his discovery of a second hand Thai cookbook eventually led him to Australia. In 2015 Ben become the owner of Attica in Melbourne and turned it into one of the world's most acclaimed and innovative restaurants. This episode of Conversations...

Antony Penrose grew up knowing little about his remarkable mother Lee Miller, who had studied with Man Ray in Paris, and become a model, a photographer, and a war correspondent. But then an unexpected find in the family attic changed everything. (R) Lee Miller was a Vogue model, a photographer, and a war correspondent who studied in Paris with her lover, Man Ray, lived in Egypt, and captured some...

Bhawani O'Brien's first name means "giver of life" in Tamil, which is ironic she says, because one of the greatest privileges of her life has been helping more than 100 people in their dying moments as a voluntary assisted dying practitioner. Bhawani grew up in Malaysia with Sri Lankan parents, both of whom were doctors. She was also expected to become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or an account...

Australian Gonzo author and documentary filmmaker John Safran has made a career out of getting into places he probably shouldn't be. He put his sanity on the line in his latest escapade — breaking into one of Kanye West's strange homes. His latest slightly criminal expedition saw him squatting in a Hollywood mansion belonging to Kanye West. John had seen a clip of the hip-hop mega star denying the...

Joh Jarvis was a high-flying boss when grief from a terrible loss began to overwhelm her. She tried therapy, exercise and healthy eating. Then she found Vedic meditation, and the experience was 'psychedelic'. Joh Jarvis is a Vedic meditation teacher. Every week, she travels into Rikers Island Prison — a notorious jail in New York City — to teach meditation to hardened criminals. Joh grew up in Ade...

Indian-Australian actor and playwright, Nicholas Brown on being cast as a villain, and what made him end his time in Mumbai for a different life back home. Actor Nicholas Brown regularly appears on Playschool — cavorting with stuffed animals and singing about the solar system. Back when he was growing up in Western Sydney there was no one who looked like him when he’d turn the telly on.  Nicholas...

The hardship, cruelty and loneliness of the mission system during the Great Depression didn't crush Aunty Ruth Hegarty's spirit. She found her voice, God and her family. (R) In 1929 during the Great Depression, Ruth travelled with her mother and grandparents to Barambah, later known as Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission. After being told someone there would help them find a new home, they soon discovere...

From the unforgiving tropics of the Kokoda track to Mt Everest, wilderness guide Steve Ellis has made a career teaching bushcraft and survival skills to civilians and Defence personnel – and along the way he has survived his share of life-threatening situations. Steve Ellis' own first lesson in survival came very young. He was just 6 years old when he got lost in the national forest near his famil...

Following the coup of 2021, Australian economist Sean Turnell received an email from a "secret friend", warning him he was being watched by Myanmar's military. Moments later, the police closed in on him. Sean Turnell is an Australian economist with longstanding connections to Myanmar, the nation formerly known as Burma. In 2016, Sean was appointed as senior economic advisor to the dissident Aung S...

From Wollongong to London, via Alice Springs, this is writer Nikki Gemmell on her deeply romantic life, and how she defied expectations to become a famous author. Writer Nikki Gemmell grew up the daughter of a coal miner who thought writers were a burden on society, while her mum taught Nikki that only success was worthy of love. So Nikki went above and beyond to prove her beloved father wrong, an...

Dasha Ross' most epic adventures were chartered with her larger-than-life husband John Pinder, including the time they managed a beachside hotel in Sri Lanka. Things did not go as planned. Dasha Ross has lived a life full of adventures, from nude modelling in Sydney and making films in Brazil, to renovating a nightclub in Harlem with a baby on her hip. But Dasha's biggest adventures were with her...

When surf writer Tim Baker was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer, he had no idea how the hormones which saved his life would fundamentally change his experience of being a man (R). Surf writer Tim Baker was in his early fifties when he was riding a very good wave in his life. He had a job he loved as a surfing writer, a beautiful family, and he lived within walking distance of the beach. But...

Penny Moodie grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and developed habits to try to ward off impending doom. It turned out she had been living with obsessive-compulsive disorder. (R) Penny Moodie grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and ideas - that her parents would die in a car crash, that her mother was not really her mother, or that she had somehow contracted HIV aids. It's not unusual...

They're violent and scary, some of them are madmen and others are convicted killers, but the gangsters who control organised crime syndicates in Melbourne are mostly just stupid, according to veteran crime reporter John Silvester. Veteran crime reporter John Silvester has been covering gangland wars, armed robberies and serial killers in Melbourne for almost half a century. Over that time, the cit...