Conversations With Richard Fidler Podcasts

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)

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

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

The Mandandanji, Darambal and Wangan woman's career in theatre has taken her from Roma, in outback Queensland, around the world, with a brief break as a guard at a children's hospital

When Ken Henry was starting out in his career, Australia was known as the 'miracle economy'. Economics got inside him and Ken eventually helped the country sail through the 2008 global financial crisis

Linguist Kate Burridge with the story of how Old English began on a small, damp island on the periphery of the world

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 (R)

Elizabeth Osborne with tales of struggle, love and grief from raising her five kids as a single mum, and the moment she saw her youngest, World Champion surfer Mick Fanning survive a shark attack on live TV

Joanne Petersen recalls working as a personal assistant to The Beatles' manager, the freedom of the Swinging Sixties in London and eloping to the Bahamas with a Bee Gee

Nadia Wheatley with the stories of two women ahead of their time: the writer Charmian Clift and her own mother Nina Watkin

Samantha Wheeler’s daughter Charlotte has Rett Syndrome, a rare ‘locked-in’ disorder (R)

Much-loved broadcaster and writer Wendy was born with a cleft lip and palate, into a struggling family. As a young journalist she saw an anarchic cabaret show which changed the course of her life

When Dr Catherine Crock saw her young leukemia patients suffering, she knew music would ease their pain, but she didn't know that years later she would be on the receiving end of the healing power of melody

Bronwyn Adcock with the story of one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia’s 2019 Black Summer: the Currowan fire

Meryl Broughton with stories from her work conducting autopsies at a country mortuary (CW: Graphic descriptions)

Robert Pekin lost his family’s 4th-generation farm, and in despair, walked away from everything and into the wilderness. After much soul-searching and trial and error, he developed a new way to link food producers more directly with those who eat the produce (R) CW: mentions suicide

Actor and writer Brendan Cowell with tender and funny tales from his boyhood as a child actor and a budding playwright

The critic on what he has learned from watching 25,000 films, and that time he peed on Federico Fellini

Andrew Wear on how Australia might change in the post-pandemic world

David Heilpern with stories of drama, crime and heartache from his 21 years as a country magistrate (CW: references to drug use and sexual assault)

Hannah Kent with the true story of the Prussians who fled Europe for a new life in South Australia in 1838, then met a malevolent doctor on board their ship

Megan Phelps-Roper grew up inside the notorious Westboro Baptist Church family. In 2012 she left the church, and her family, to live in the world she once reviled (R)

Deirdre O'Connell with a tale of music, race and a secret militia set in Australia's Jazz Age (CW: discretion is advised when listening)

As a child, ordinary sensations of clothes on her skin made Allison Davies feel as though her life was under threat. She recognised the life-changing power of sound when she became a music therapist — both for herself and others

Kylie Stevenson delves into the story of Paddy Moriarty, who went missing from Larrimah, an outback Northern Territory town known for a weird pink panther in a gyrocopter.

In 1942 three midget submarines armed with torpedoes made their way into Sydney Harbour to launch an attack on Allied warships. They were sent by the Imperial Japanese Navy (R)

Palaeontologist John Long found his first fossil in a Melbourne quarry as a 7 year old. He grew up to unearth new clues as to how we became human, and to the origins of sex

Former narcotics agent, John Shobbrook battled corruption when investigating an audacious plan to air-drop heroin into Far North Queensland in the 1970s

Roland de Chazal is best known for being the 81-year-old motorbike postie on Magnetic Island, but his earlier life in Rhodesia had its moments too — it was there he met the Queen Mother and kept his pet cheetah, Jackals

Judy on life with her late husband, the politician Tim Fischer, and how her son Harrison helped inspire a new beginning on her farm (R)

Stories from Dave Grohl about his life in music, including how he went from being "that guy from Nirvana” to a superstar rock star fronting the Foo Fighters