Conversations

Yosemite’s most punishing climb is the 3000ft sheer face of El Capitan mountain called the Dawn Wall. Tommy grew up exploring Yosemite and in 2015 he and his partner Kevin Jorgeson became the first to free-climb the wall (R)

The most audacious sports cheats aren't always elite athletes. Titus O'Reily takes a look at the ignoble art of winning by breaking, or bending, the rules

Richard's family story is hard to beat in a game of who has the strangest parents. The Sydney broadcaster began to understand more about his eccentric mother when he met a clutch of relatives he didn't know he had (R)

Fiona’s alcoholism took her a long time to acknowledge and cost her a great deal. In recent years she’s been reckoning with all that’s happened since she joined the comedy circuit and its culture of heavy drinking, as well as how she wants to live now 

When Annabel Bower’s fourth child Miles was stillborn, she decided to begin to break the silence around stillbirth and miscarriage

Peter Stojanovic was working in a Melbourne meatworks when a spiritual epiphany led him to a new life, working with violent men to help change their thinking Peter Stojanovic's family fled their tiny town in the former Yugoslavia because of religious persecution. Under the community regime, life was a struggle and after Peter's father became a Christian it became dangerous. Borders were closed to...

During Australia's worst bushfires Cate Tregellas and her family were forced to evacuate their home in Mallacoota and retreat to the local wharf as fire closed in. That long, terrifying night was a New Year's Eve they'll never forget. This is an episode of Days Like These, a new ABC podcast

Lach McClymont mustered hundreds of wild cattle, untouched for decades, from a remote area of the Northern Territory (R)

Cathy McGowan never imagined a future for herself as a politician. So when she became Federal Member for Indi she began doing politics very differently

Ajay is an obstetrician and urogynecologist who grew up in rural India. His father, born to one of India’s lowest classes, was also a surgeon — an improbable career that was the brainchild of Ajay’s grandmother, and funded by a whole village

When Lamorna Ash began to explore her Cornish ancestry she started work on a rusty yellow fishing trawler called the Filadelfia, scaling fish, gutting them and hauling in the nets 

John Baker on hunting down a cache of rare and impossibly valuable French wine which had been hidden away by Josef Stalin, deep in the Republic of Georgia

From painkiller addiction to parliament, Jacqui's life has been a rollercoaster (R)

Epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws on life during COVID-19, the virus she classifies as both vulnerable and ruthless

Robert built a whole life out of things which sparked his curiosity, whether they were languages, people or places. But when he met his birth mother in middle age, she didn't approve of his choices

Demystifying the art of talk therapy and the complex relationship between therapist and patient (R)

Harry Bowman tells adventurous tales from his three decades driving tour boats in the crocodile-infested Adelaide River, including the day he saved the life of a croc named Brutus

Becardiganed polymath Robin Ince on the fascinating brains of stand-up comics (R)

Jimmy Barnes grew up as a boy called James Swan in Glasgow, then in South Australia. In his late teens, he joined a band called Cold Chisel and became a huge star. But on and off stage Jimmy was battling the demons of his troubled childhood

Cookbook author Hetty McKinnon was raised by a mum who was a passionate and creative cook. But Hetty was never particularly interested in cooking herself, until something happened as she grew up which changed everything

How one of the world's most influential crossword setters became increasingly interested in the science behind them (R)

Richard Flanagan on writing his apocalyptic novel on a remote island, as bushfires burned through Tasmania's forests

Television presenter Kumi Taguchi's story of searching for her Japanese heritage began with searching for her grandparent's house in Tokyo, which none of her relatives had visited for decades (R)

Monica McInerney grew up in a family of railway children, as her Dad was the stationmaster in the tiny South Australian town of Clare. At 16, she left home to work as Humphrey B. Bear's wardrobe designer. Years later, she made a new life in Ireland and became a best-selling writer

Jacinta Parsons was in her 20s when she became horribly unwell with Crohn's disease, a chronic disease of the digestive system. Then, doctors gave her the news she feared most