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Spend an hour in someone else's life. Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met.
Lydia Pearson with the story of the chance meeting which saw her co-found a fashion label which became a global sensation
Judith was nearly 50 and dealing with grief, menopause and a world in climate crisis when the unthinkable happened
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Outposts — what Dan found at the ends of the Earth
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Dan Richards follows his curiosity to some of the most remote habitable places in the world including an Icelandic cabin and a monastery high in the mountains of Japan (R)
Lech Blaine was 17 when he walked away unscratched from a fatal head-on collision outside Toowoomba which killed three of his friends and left two of them in comas (CW: contains graphic descriptions of road trauma and accidents. Discretion advised)
Andrew Darby flew around the world on the trail of a small, unassuming migratory shorebird called the Grey Plover. In the middle of his journey, without warning, he began to fear for his own survival (R)
Patrice Newell was a model and a TV host before she began a new life as a biodynamic farmer (R)
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Love, sex and the secret life of retirees
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Screenwriter Samantha Strauss on her grandmother's vibrant last years in a Gold Coast retirement home where love, sex and startlingly pragmatic conversations about dying were all part of daily life (CW: not suitable for children)
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Blood like honey — Kirsty's two rounds with childhood cancer
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53:14
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Instead of becoming an Olympic gymnast as she'd dreamed, by nineteen Kirsty Everett had survived leukaemia twice and fought her way to university. A childhood marked by punishing treatment regimes and the deaths of friends fed Kirsty's fierce determination to make the most of life
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George Saunders on life lessons from Russian writers
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Writer George Saunders says stories by Russian writers Chekhov, Turgenev, Gogol and Tolstoy can guide us as to 'how we are supposed to be living down here'
With countries in lockdown, the showdown with China accelerating and the rise of white supremacy, the planet stands on a precipice. Journalist Stan Grant looks at a possible way forward
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
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My brother, our farm, and seeking the source of consciousness — Mark Solms
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52:34
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When he was a young boy in South Africa, Professor Mark Solms watched his older brother fall from a roof and crack his skull.His brother survived but was greatly changed by the injuries to his brain. The incident planted in Mark a deep desire to understand how a person's brain shapes them. CW: contains description of a medical procedure…
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Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller — Broadway and me
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Jeffrey tells stories of grit, brilliance and tragedy behind the making of the smash hit musicals 'Rent' and 'Hamilton'
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Robina Courtin — listening to prisoners on death row
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In 1978 Australian Robina Courtin became one of the first westerners to be ordained as a Buddhist nun. Then a letter from a young prisoner in a California jail began a huge change in her own story (R)
Palm Island, Mer Island, and Australia are the cornerstones of Rachael's work as an actor and a director (R)
Simone Sheridan on working at the coalface of Australia's Covid-19 pandemic
When Admiral Chris Barrie retired as the Chief of the Defence Force, he became increasingly concerned about life for veterans with PTSD. Then he discovered certain psychedelic drugs were being used to literally change minds
After Rick Morton was unexpectedly diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder he set out on a year-long mission to rediscover love
When Helen Jukes was given a colony of bees they helped release her from the numbing grind of her working life (R)
Thriller writer Helen Fitzgerald on her life as a social worker inside some of Scotland's toughest prisons
Choir master Stephen Taberner was raised a Christadelphian, but in his adult life he celebrates the pleasure of music (R)
Candy Baker was a cash-strapped single mum with too many horses when she moved to the hills outside Byron Bay and discovered a new way of communicating with her herd
Justice advocate Keenan Mundine broke the cycle of crime and incarceration in his own life after a chance meeting at a birthday party (CW: mentions suicide, references to drug use. Strong language. Discretion advised)
Deborah Prior was one of more than 2000 mixed-race babies born to white British women and black American GI's during WWII. As an adult, she finally found her birth mother again under strange circumstances (CW: discussion of adoption, discretion advised)
Deborah Lawrie had her first flying lesson at 16, then became a flying instructor herself. But when she applied for a job as a pilot, she found herself in the fight of her life
When Caroline O'Connor was told she had 'too much personality' for the ballet, she turned to musical theatre and braved cattle calls and years of working as an understudy in order to make it on Broadway and London's West End
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Two spoons and a dugout canoe — the story of Jock McLaren
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Tom Gilling with the story of how a Scottish-born soldier named Jock McLaren became one of Australia's greatest World War II guerrilla fighters
Bill began his dream job as the ABC's China Correspondent in 2015. Five years later, seven State Security police officers visited him in the middle of the night to tell him he was barred from leaving the country
Sean Dooley's passion for birdwatching began with the coo of a spotted turtle dove. Decades later he broke the Australian birdwatching record (R)
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The cold case secret in a Brisbane garage
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51:10
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When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, and Uluru, he unearthed new evidence about an 86-year old cold case *CW: For our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners please be advised that today’s conversation contains the voice and names of people who have died.
Serafina Tanè was born into a doomsday cult led by a charismatic and abusive man who claimed he'd been abducted by aliens
Eight thrilling encounters in and on the water, as told by previous Conversations guests (R)
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When Jeanne was Jean — sailing the high seas disguised as a man
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Danielle Clode with the story of the adventurous Jeanne Barrett, a French peasant from Burgundy who became the first woman to sail around the world
Political reporter Jonathan Swan with the inside story of Donald Trump’s last few months in office
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The history of libraries from before stone tablets to printed books
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50:56
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Stuart Kells' life as a bibliophile began with one ancient, leather-bound, blue book (R)
Cosmologist Tamara Davis on the complicated scientific quest to explore and colonise the Red Planet
After Kim Scott became a teacher and a father, he started looking for his Aboriginal family *CW: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners please use discretion when listening as the following program references people who have died.
The late Mary Wilson rose up from Detroit's housing projects to find worldwide fame with The Supremes (R)
Avi Loeb was Harvard's top astronomer when he became intrigued by reports of a pancake-shaped object the size of a football field hurtling through our solar system
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Secret agents in the suburbs: a real life family spy story
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Sue Ellen Kusher’s father was an ASIO agent, and she and her siblings were taught to memorise number plates, spot unusual behaviour, and keep the family business secret at all costs
Ocean racing navigator Will Oxley first learned his trade through celestial navigation, using a sextant and the stars. He then began ocean racing around the world, and in 1998, he found himself upside down in a storm-wrecked Bass Strait
Warren Brown with the story of the fever sparked by claims of a gold reef in the Central Australian desert during the Great Depression (R)
Georgina Godwin grew up in Zimbabwe with a father who was the model of a British gentleman. Many years after she fled Africa for London, she discovered his secret identity
Art detective Arthur Brand met neo-Nazis, billionaire collectors and underground art dealers on his hunt for the two enormous bronze horse sculptures once owned by Hitler
Gail Austen was 7 years old when she started her first business, selling hand-made billycarts on the streets of Redfern. She grew up to become a legendary surf shop entrepreneur with a habit of hiring her shoplifters
Philippa's parents wanted her to move in the 'right' circles, so they sent her to a Swiss finishing school. Instead she became a debt collector, went to Hamburger University then became a psychotherapist
Former politician Robert Tickner grew up in country NSW, 'showered with love' by his adoptive parents. When he was reunited with his biological mum in his 40s, he realised she'd been much closer than he ever knew (R)*CW: This conversation discusses adoption. Please use discretion when listening
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A life inside the rock 'n' roll circus - Part 2
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49:48
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In 1973, Tana Douglas found her calling. She became the world's first woman roadie in rock and roll, touring with AC/DC, Iggy Pop and Elton John *CW: discussion of drugs and drug use
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A life inside the rock 'n' roll circus - Part 1
45:30
45:30
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In 1973, Tana Douglas found her calling. She became the world's first woman roadie in rock and roll, touring with AC/DC, Iggy Pop and Elton John
Andrew Steele on the race to crack the scientific code of why we get old, and whether we can delay or suspend ageing for good
