Conversations

Dr Samantha Nixon used to be a quivering mess at the sight of a huntsman in the house. Today, she catches, cares for and milks tarantulas, funnel web and trapdoor spiders in a normal working day

Ky Furneaux spent 16 years in Hollywood as a professional stunt performer, falling, fighting and breaking glass on cue. She has managed to make her next life even more extreme — surviving in the wild, sometimes with just a knife, often naked

When Justin Carter crossed the Strzelecki Track by motorbike with his brother Chris and his aging father Neville, he knew he was in for an adventure. But then the odyssey changed his family in an unexpected way

When Wendy Sharpe read her late father's diaries, she began a new exploration of her Jewish family's history, including the story of her psychic grandmother, Bessie

When stripper and tattoo artist Ally Colquitt was arrested for drug dealing, it became a turning point. Inside her jail cell, she began reading, drawing, and embarked on the painstaking process of rebuilding her life from its ashes (CW: mentions suicide, grief and loss, drug use)

Joyce Morgan with the story of Elizabeth Von Arnim, the Australian-born literary sensation who captivated Victorian London

Entomologist Dr Trevor Lambkin says the main thing butterfly collectors need is a sense of adventure — something he has honed over 40 years of travel to the Torres Strait

After an early life spent surfing around the world, an Australian businessman got serious about his career and created a global tool for measuring peace in every country, and has since been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize

Paul is a musician, author and performer best known for his comedic alter-ego, Flacco. In recent years he's joined an eclectic band of people who ring the bells at his local church tower in inner Sydney. He's also been working as a volunteer, listening to and writing down the stories of people at the end of their lives (R)

Midwife Christian Wright with tales of emergency evacuations and surfing with crocodiles while working in remote Indigenous communities in Arnhem Land, helping Yolŋu women birth their babies (R)

Mandy's life changed completely in 2013 when she fell terribly ill with sepsis. Since then, with prosthetic replacements for all four limbs, she has learned to walk and drive again, and she doesn't want applause for living her life like everyone else (CW: mention of suicide) (R)

When Sue-Ellen Kusher was growing up in Brisbane suburbia, behind closed doors her Dad was an ASIO spy, training his three children as foot soldiers in the Cold War (R)

Gurindji man and ABC presenter Charlie knew a little about his mum's life story as he grew up. But after she died, he began to reckon with what she had lived through as a child (CW: contains mention of ATSI people who have died; mentions of sexual violence) (R)

A cat, a hawk, a monkey, a crow and a lop-eared rabbit: animals who walked into the lives of five people leaving the humans to wonder, 'What am I to this creature?' (R)

William returns to reminisce about the Christmases of his childhood and his brief but brilliant stint as a department store Santa (R) William returns with stories and reminiscences of the Christmases of his childhood. Under the tree would be K-Tel gadgets and pop albums, bottles of cheap aftershave and perfume, and a Christmas stocking stuffed with small toys, an orange and a jar of pickled onions...

American novelist Ann Patchett reflects on the men who made her, going a year without shopping and her power to make herself invisible

As a child, Jamie Teh wanted a computer of his own so badly, he used to pretend, using his dad's business calculator. As an adult, he used this obsession to give online access to more than 100,000 blind computer users around the world, for free

Michael Curran met his friend Jamie at a music camp for blind children. Within a few years they had invented a free software to give more than 100,000 blind people around the world the power to use the internet Michael Curran lives on a property north of Brisbane with his wife and their two kids and their menagerie of animals. A few years ago he set up a ground-breaking software company with his c...

The Australian actor and writer measures the major events of his life against big moments in Australian cricket, including the nadir of his performing life when he was cast as an angry chicken

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

Dennis Altman is an avowed Australian republican, but he can see the use of constitutional monarchies in times of transition. The question is: do they have the ability to withstand pressure from autocrats?

Kate Legge traces the lives of pioneering naturalists Kate Cowle and Gustav Weindorfer in Tasmania's sublime wilderness (R)

Jess Hill was a teenage magazine founder, a travel writer, a Middle East correspondent and a survivor of serious illness before she wrote her groundbreaking book on domestic violence

Novelist John Grisham with his life story; from his work as a trial lawyer, to writing, and how he became involved in a movement using DNA testing to exonerate the innocent

Abbas Nazari was a 7 year old refugee on a sinking fishing boat in the Indian Ocean when he was rescued by the MV Tampa, just as Australia closed its doors to asylum seekers. After being given a home in New Zealand, Abbas grew up to become a Fulbright scholar