Podcast · Society & Culture

Conversations

by ABC Australia · English · Society & Culture

New episodes: Daily
Typical length: 52 min
Latest: 7 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026 · 49 minNew

My poo transplant, ayahuasca trip and other wellness quests

Judith Lucy is one of Australia's most loved comedians. Recently after years of tummy troubles, burnout, and a complicated relationship with alcohol, she began her mission to work on her health, in earnest. As well as being a beloved comic, Judith is also the author of four books and the presenter of several television series. For decades Judith has been busying herself with project after project after project, to distract herself from sitting with the truth of where her workaholism, insomnia and dicey relationship with alcohol was coming from. It took Judith a long time to realise she was a…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

6 Oct 2026 · 51 minNew

Encore: Why I became a teacher at the school where I was bullied

A portrait of one teacher and his class as they journey through the ups and downs of a school year. Brendan James Murrary has been a high school teacher for more than ten years and although his own experiences at school weren't great, he ended up taking a job back at the school where he was a bullied and unhappy student. During his time as a teacher he's seen hundreds of kids move through the same hallways and classrooms - boisterous, angry, shy, big-hearted, awkward - all of them on the journey to adulthood. He's also discovered that what makes a good teacher has more to do with generosity…
5 Oct 2026 · 52 minNew

Richard Glover on the strange, hilarious and heartbreaking rules of Australian parenting

The instructions found in endorsed baby books over the last century could be, with hindsight, bizarre or cruel. And were most often given by “experts” with no children of their own. Journalist and broadcaster, Richard Glover tackles the changing landscape of parenting advice. He looks back at his own experience of being parented, which included having his ears sticky-taped while growing up in Papua New Guinea, and draws on modern day grand-parenthood to highlight the marked differences in how we raise our children. Richard has delved into the archives to draw out the strangest, sometimes…
2 Oct 2026 · 52 min

Monica McInerney's five year rollercoaster ride

The author on the diagnosis that floored her and the gifts that got her through harrowing treatment — including a cat named Nicholas. The Australian-Irish author was last on the program in 2020. She reflected on her childhood by the railway tracks in the Clare Valley, South Australia, where she grew up with her band of brothers and sisters. After she recorded that interview, Monica received a cancer diagnosis. International borders were closed due to covid, and Monica found herself staying in a tiny unit with her mum and a cat they named Nicholas. She didn't see her beloved husband John for…
1 Oct 2026 · 52 min

Encore: The pilot shot down by enemy fire and how he survived

RAF pilot Frank Dell parachuted into Nazi occupied Holland after his plane was hit by cannon fire and with the aid of courageous Dutch families and resistance fighters he got out alive. As a teenager, Frank saw the Battle of Britain played out in the skies above his village in the south of England. He joined the RAF and piloted a De Havilland Mosquito on bombing raids into Germany. In October 1944 Frank's plane was shot out of the sky and he parachuted into Nazi territory. Frank witnessed extraordinary scenes as he walked his way through the countryside into occupied Holland. It was there he…
30 Sep 2026 · 53 min

Magda's mum, the tragic secret, and the moment of grace

When Magda Szubanski discovered what had happened to her mum as a child, she began to see her in an entirely new light (CW: discussion of sexual abuse, please take care when listening) Magda released her first memoir a few years ago, to widespread acclaim. It was the story of how Magda unearthed the life story of her Polish-born father and his role as an assassin during WWII. Magda's now written her second memoir which hinges on the life story of her charming and funny Scottish-born mother, Margaret. Magda had a complicated and deeply loving relationship with her mum, who sometimes lashed…
29 Sep 2026 · 52 min

Encore: The Olympic swim coach who spat on a silver medal, and how it changed him

Laurie Lawrence's obsession with winning Gold started when he was a small boy growing up above the Tobruk Pool in Townsville. When he became a coach, he had an epiphany about the nature of victory. When Laurie was a child, he had a chronic lung condition that meant he had to sleep sitting in a chair. Doctors advised his parents that an operation was necessary, and part of one of his lungs was removed. After the operation, Laurie's father took over the management of Townsville's Tobruk Pool, and the family lived in an apartment overlooking the lanes. In 1956 the Australian Olympic team came…
28 Sep 2026 · 52 min

Caring for my fiercely strong-willed father

Kim Huynh on his family's remarkable journey from Vietnam to Australia. And taking on the role of carer for his fiercely strong-willed father, Thiet. Kim grew up in Canberra, arriving in Australia with his family as refugees from Vietnam. Like many migrant children, Kim is a very driven person and has taken on a lot of responsibilities in life. He is an academic, an ABC broadcaster, an author and a father. And when his 80-year-old father had a serious stroke, Kim also took on the role of carer. He had to find a way to help look after his dad, with whom he was living, continue working,…
25 Sep 2026 · 44 min

Stories from our elders: how Jane Fonda changed her life in her third act

The legendary actress Jane Fonda on her activism, her hair epiphanies and why older women are often fearless. Jane has lived her entire life in the public eye, as the daughter of acting aristocracy. Her father Henry Fonda was a Hollywood legend by the time she was born. Jane grew up to study acting with Lee Strasberg, and Marilyn Monroe was a classmate. But behind the public adoration, Jane was battling some big personal demons, including bulimia and the legacy of a shocking family tragedy. In her 30s she began re-assessing her life and work, and became a leader of the anti-Vietnam War…
24 Sep 2026 · 47 min

Remembering Angry Anderson: rock n' roll animal and incurable romantic

Iconic Australian musician, actor, youth advocate and charity ambassador Angry Anderson has died at the age of 79. Angry spent 50 years in the music industry with his legendary rock band, Rose Tattoo, and the band was due to return to the stage this month for another Australian tour. But Angry was much more than a raging rock n' roll animal. He was an incurable romantic, despite his violent childhood in Melbourne. He was a loyal, devoted father of four, and Angry was always a friend to the little guy. You can read more about Angry Anderson's remarkable life at the ABC News website.…
23 Sep 2026 · 51 min

Stories from our Elders: My passionate friendship with a rebel poet

Alison Hoddinot was one of the first Australian women to study at Oxford University, but one of her lecturers, J.R.R Tolkein, refused to take on a woman PhD student. Alison was born in Tasmania in 1931. As a young woman she won a scholarship to study at Oxford University. But when she arrived, none of the male professors including J.R.R Tolkien, would take on a woman PhD student. Back in Tasmania Alison became great friends with the poet Gwen Harwood. The two shared recipes, letters, and the challenges of combining work and motherhood. During their friendship Gwen shocked the nation when she…
22 Sep 2026 · 52 min

Stories from our Elders: the chef who taught 37,000 Australians how to cook

Elizabeth Chong didn't cook her first meal until she was a newlywed. Six decades later, the owner of a cooking school specialising in Chinese cuisine, she had taught more than 37,000 people how to cook. Chef, author and teacher Elizabeth Chong was born in China's Guangdong Province in 1931. When her heavily pregnant mother was expelled from Victoria under the White Australia Policy in the 1920s, the whole family returned to China. Years later her family returned and a young Elizabeth was free to roam the closed Queen Victoria Market on Sundays with her siblings. With fresh, fragrant and…
21 Sep 2026 · 49 min

Stories from our Elders: Bryan Brown's road from Bankstown to Hollywood

Bryan Brown has played more than 80 roles on stage and screen. Raised in working-class Sydney, his talent, hard work, and unmistakable presence have been his ticket to the world. In our week of stories from our elders, we begin with the life of Bryan Brown. Now aged 79, Bryan has had more film and television acting roles than he’s had birthdays, and is an instantly recognisable figure on screens around the world. From Breaker Morant and Newsfront to Two Hands and Sweet Country, a huge number of classic Australian films feature Bryan, a testament to his talent, popularity and work ethic.…
18 Sep 2026 · 53 min

The radical history of personal computing—looms, coding, beige boxes and AI

Mel Huang Buntine on how computers started entering our homes, and the beige box of a machine that changed her own life. Personal computers are so ubiquitous now, it's hard to imagine a time when computers were inaccessible to everyday people. For decades, computers were the size of rooms, and they were used for specialist tasks like processing large data sets for researchers, or sending men to the moon. But by the 1980s computers had become smaller and more affordable, and people started bringing them into their homes. From this point on, how everyday people interacted with technology…
17 Sep 2026 · 51 min

Encore: Vickie's turbulent life in and out of prison, and how she reclaimed her power

Prisoner advocate Vickie Roach spent decades in and out of jail but after studying for her masters degree, she helped change the story for thousands of other prisoners. When Vicki was just two years old, she was given a police record, which enabled authorities to place her into the custody of a family she didn't know. She grew up under the strict religious rule of her adoptive mother, whom she clashed with frequently. Vickie left school at thirteen. It was that year she met her birth mother for the first time, and discovered she was Aboriginal. Decades of trouble followed, including numerous…
16 Sep 2026 · 51 min

My dad Jim Henson, the creative genius behind 'The Muppets'

Growing up Lisa Henson and her siblings spent a lot of time in their father's workshop and studio, watching puppets get drawn, sculpted and brought to life. Jim Henson first started messing around with puppets as a teenager, and not long afterwards he began collaborating with his wife Jane. Together they founded Muppets Incorporated. Puppets became a way for Jim to share his extraordinary imagination with the world, and he went on to become one of the most influential creative minds of the 20th century. His legacy includes Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and the movies The Dark Crystal and…
15 Sep 2026 · 52 min

Encore: What happened when I tried MDMA therapy

Author Rebecca Huntley used supervised MDMA therapy to help her with complex PTSD and the legacy of childhood trauma. Rebecca's public life as a broadcaster, an author and a social researcher made her well-known to many Australians. But in private, Rebecca spent years grappling with complex PTSD and childhood trauma. At 50, while walking the Camino, she realised that despite decades of therapy, she was still living with a roiling anger about what had happened to her as a child. She decided to undergo MDMA therapy delivered by an underground healer. Further Information Rebecca Huntley's book…
14 Sep 2026 · 49 min

Healing intergenerational trauma and epigenetics—the children of the Third Reich

Catrine Clay with the story of the children of Nazi perpetrators and Holocaust survivors came together under extraordinary circumstances to come to terms with their dark past. In the early 1990s, historian and author Catrine Clay was working at the BBC, making a documentary about a woman named Renate. Renate had been born in Germany in 1941, and grew up in the postwar years as the sole child of a single mother. When Renate asked her mother about her missing father, she was told he had been an important general in the German forces, who had been imprisoned by the Russians. But that wasn't the…
11 Sep 2026 · 52 min

Comedian Urzila Carlson regrets nothing

Urzila Carlson grew up in South Africa. Her father threatened the family with a gun when she was 6, and he walked out on the family soon afterwards. Urzila's mum, who she describes as a 'warrior woman', raised Urzila and her sister. When she was in primary school, one of Urzila's teachers taught her a big lesson about regret, which has stayed with her for life. Urzila moved to New Zealand in 2006 to begin working in advertising. One day a group of her co-workers persuaded her to perform at a local open mic night. Within a year she had become a professional comedian in Australia and New…
10 Sep 2026 · 49 min

Encore: Meg Washington on the magic of music

The singer-songwriter on her early introduction to musicals in Port Moresby, how singing became a form of speech therapy for her stutter and also a path into her life’s work. Meg Washington was born in a musical home in Port Moresby, where her parents had met as Australian expats. Meg and her sister spent a lot of their time watching classic Hollywood musicals and also down at the local yacht club where their dad DJ'd every Saturday night. Singing became something Meg was encouraged to do herself after she developed a stutter as a little girl. And eventually it grew from a therapy into a…
9 Sep 2026 · 48 min

Louise Adler on why she questions everything

Louise Adler has been one of the biggest and most controversial names in Australian publishing for decades. This is the story of how she fell in love with the world of books. ⁠ An asthmatic child, she spent most of Melbourne’s winters in bed with nothing else to do but read novels. But it wasn't until her parents intervened in Louise's obsession with Enid Blyton’s boarding school series that her deep pleasure in the world of books began in earnest. ⁠ Shaped by her family's story of surviving World War Two, Louise grew up in questioning everything. She was 15 years old when she went to her…
8 Sep 2026 · 51 min

Encore: The beautiful questions your intellectual mind can't answer

Acclaimed poet and philosopher David Whyte has come to believe a single line of poetry is enough to change your life. David grew up amongst the moors and fields of West Yorkshire, with an English father and an Irish mother who had a gift for lyricism and language. He started writing poems at just seven years old, but it wasn't until he was working as a guide in the Galapagos Islands that David truly understood what poetry was and what it could do for us. A near-death experience there prepared him for life as a poet by teaching him to pay attention to what lay right in front of him at any…
7 Sep 2026 · 52 min

Black ops and human shields—the secrets on board Flight 149

Why were 400 civilians allowed to fly into a war zone as Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait? What really happened to them when they were held as hostages? And why has the British government fought for so long to keep it all a secret? Stephen Davis is an investigative journalist who has been following a story, within a story, within a story for more than 30 years. It starts on 2 August, 1990 when a British Airways plane landed in Kuwait for a scheduled stopover. There were nearly 400 passengers and crew on board, mostly British, who had no idea they were flying straight into Saddam Hussein's…
4 Sep 2026 · 55 min

From the Nazis to the Stasi, how ordinary citizens live through extraordinary times

Historian Katja Hoyer was born in 1985, under the old regime of the GDR and grew up in the 1990s, watching many former East Germans struggle in the years after reunification. Learning about the Nazi era was a big part of her education but Katja left school feeling unsatisfied about what she’d been taught about the period when the Nazis rose to power. She knew about all the big political moments, but not much about the lives of ordinary Germans and how they responded to the dramatic changes that unfolded around all around them. So Katja the historian traced the lives of residents in the town…
3 Sep 2026 · 51 min

Encore: The family secret which inspired 'The Teacher's Pet'

Journalist Hedley Thomas grew up knowing that his grandmother Gladys had vanished in the sea off Sydney in the 1950s. The mystery of what happened to Gladys helped to inspire his hit podcast 'The Teacher's Pet'. Hedley has had a storied career in journalism which has seen him win many Walkley Awards and expose a lot of corruption and dodgy dealings. But it has also placed Hedley and his family in harm's way. In 2002 Hedley and his wife Ruth were at their home when bullets were fired into their bedroom. The shooter was never found, and Hedley grappled with PTSD after the event. A couple of…
2 Sep 2026 · 46 min

Loving my dad, who has younger-onset Alzheimer's

Millie Robinson’s family had been through enough as it was before her devoted dad Jim Rogers received his diagnosis in 2021. Today they navigate the unknown together and stay in the moment to enjoy their tight-knit community. Millie is a celebrant, mum and author living in Brisbane. She also supports her dad, Jim, who has younger-onset Alzheimer’s. Millie started life in the UK, in a very tight-knit network of family and friends who wrapped their arms around Jim, Millie and her siblings when Millie’s mum died of cancer. Jim became the dad and the mum of the house, and for years put himself…
1 Sep 2026 · 51 min

Encore: An infamous WWII prison and the soldiers who tried to escape

British writer Ben Macintyre on the eerie history of Colditz Castle which the Germans used as a prisoner of war camp during World War II. Since the Middle Ages, Colditz Castle has existed in some form, perched on the edge of a cliff in eastern Germany. Colditz has served as a royal hunting lodge, a madhouse, and most famously as a prisoner of war camp during World War II. It was said to be inescapable, but that didn't stop the English officers from trying to escape the nightmare of this gloomy fortress, and the clutches of the Germans. Ben Macintyre tells the full story of Colditz and the…
31 Aug 2026 · 52 min

The day my big, fat Egyptian wedding went pear-shaped

Author Tess Woods had always dreamed of her big day, growing up watching her beloved Nana create in-demand bridal gowns. The stories of these dresses became a way for Tess to understand her family’s origins in North Africa, which she left in the late 1970s. (Warning: This episode references the loss of a child.) Tess moved to Melbourne from Egypt when she was five years old. At large family gatherings, Tess dreamed of a big, fat, Egyptian wedding with 250 guests, food for days, belly dancing — the works. But after she became engaged to her sweet, mild-mannered Australian boyfriend Paul,…
28 Aug 2026 · 53 min

The Kennedys—inside the infamous political dynasty and their summertime secrets

Who are the Kennedys, really? And what has made the legacy of America's political dynasty so famous, divisive and enduring? The Kennedys are often described as the closest thing the United States has to a royal family, with fiercely competitive and divisive figures taking up space in American political and public life for generations. Even now, the influence of the Kennedy family continues to persist with RFK Junior, who is serving as the U.S. secretary of health and human services. There have been Kennedys who thrived with fame and power, and those who struggled greatly with that burden,…
27 Aug 2026 · 52 min

Encore: My beloved husband's path to Voluntary Assisted Dying

After Pauline McGrath's husband David was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he chose to use Voluntary Assisted Dying. Pauline supported him through the journey as he took the steps to end his life. A few years ago, Pauline came home from work and found the lights on and the dog already fed. This was something which had never happened in her 30-year marriage to David, a director of paediatric medicine at Queensland Children's Hospital. Straight away, Pauline asked David, "Who has died?" Her beloved husband told her he had a brain tumour, and that voluntary assisted dying was going to be an…

About Conversations

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 is a English society & culture podcast from ABC Australia. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: ABC Australia
Language: English
Category: Society & Culture
New episodes: Daily
Typical length: 52 min
Latest episode: 7 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id94688506
Website: abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations

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