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ABC Australia

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

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 used acrostic sonnets to pull a wild hoax on The Bulletin magazine in 1961.

First broadcast in 2018

Further information

In 2022 Alison Hoddinot passed away after a short illness

Women, Oxford and Novels of Crime and Gwen Harwood: Idle Talk - Letters 1960-1964 are published by Brandl and Schlesinger

Read more about Gwen and Alison's friendship and their letters

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

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 plentiful Chinese food at home, Elizabeth didn’t cook her first meal until she was married.

Since then, she's made it her mission to raise the profile of Chinese cuisine, something she's done by teaching more than 37,000 people how to cook.

In 2024, Elizabeth retired from teaching people how to cook, in her early 90s.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan. Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.

It explores refugees, refugee Australians, multiculturalism, monoculture, migration, immigration, Chinese history in Australia, Chinese cooking, Chinese food, families, dim sim, recipes, family recipes, Australian Chinese food, life advice, life advice from our elders, family dynamics, family separation, marriage, divorce, Masterchef, Australian cooks, famous Australian chefs, Australian cuisine.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

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

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. 

Bryan also spent years in Hollywood, starring most notably in Cocktail and Gorillas In The Mist, before ultimately choosing Sydney over a life in America.

In the 1980s, working on the American-made series The Thorn Birds utterly changed Bryan’s life. He and British co-star Rachel Ward fell in love and married soon after, forming a romantic and creative partnership that has endured ever since.

More recently, Brian has found a new career writing crime novels, including The Drowning and The Hidden.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Michelle Ransom-Hughes. Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.

It explores acting, Australian cinema, classic movies, Australiana, Australian kitsch, film history, fatherhood, love, rags to riches, Hollywood, anxiety, mental health, amateur theatre, theatre, Red Dog, men's mental health, love, farming.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

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

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 changed forever.

Mel Huang Buntine is a designer and technologist who was gifted her first computer as a tween in 1990s Melbourne.

Mel lived in a multigenerational home with her mother, her grandparents and her great-grandmother, all of whom had escaped the Cambodian genocide as refugees.

They couldn't understand why Mel was obsessed with this machine, but it completely opened up Mel's world and changed her life.

Now with anxiety growing around AI, surveillance and mega tech companies, Mel is trying to get people to understand the history of computers and how they work.

She hopes this will give back to people a sense of agency over machines, rather than feeling powerless to the opacity of algorithms and large language models.

Radical Computing is exhibiting at the National Communication Museum in Melbourne from 19 September 2026, until 21February 2027.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores technology, artificial intelligence, Facebook, Instagram, social media, coding, making a website, HTML, CSS, PS5, playstation, games console, computer games, desktop games, Apple iOs 27, Mac, Macbook, Mac versus PC, IBM, Commodore 64, Steam Frame, iPhone, smartphone, dumb phone, Steve Jobs, Jack Tramiel, computer race, home appliances, toy market, super computers, science and technology, future of computers, techno optimist, tech subculture, Demoscene, hackers, jailbreak phone, crack software, pirated software, Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, ChatGPT, Claude, Anthropic, Zuckerberg.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

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

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 prison terms.

Vickie's also known periods of stability, such as after winning back her son after a long-running custody dispute.

In 2007, Vickie was awarded her Master's degree while serving her final prison sentence at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Victoria.

She was also the sole plaintiff in a ground-breaking legal challenge to the High Court, which returned some prisoners the right to vote.

Today, Vickie continues her work as an advocate for the rights of women in prison. 

Content warning: episode contains mentions of violence, suicide and drug use

Further information
Vickie appears in ABC TV's You Cant Ask That - Domestic Violence (survivors) episode
Vickie was joint winner of the 2017 Tim McCoy Human Rights Award

Adoption resources and support

Jigsaw Australia - search and contact

Find and Connect - support for former residents of children's homes, orphanages and institutions

Post-Adoption Support Benevolent Society AustraliaForced Adoption services Government support services website or, contact the Forced Adoption Support Service in your state or territory, call 1800 21 03 13
Australian Adoptees Network
For immediate support, you can call Lifeline 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 46 36

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

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 The Labyrinth.

Jim’s creations, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, and the Cookie Monster remain recognisable and beloved around the world.

Jim Henson died in 1990, but the Jim Henson company is still owned by the family, and his eldest child Lisa is now the CEO.

Further Information 

The Jim Henson exhibition at QAGOMA in Brisbane is on until April 2027

Make, Believe, Magic, The worlds of the of the Jim Henson companyThis episode of Conversations was produced by Jen Leake and the Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores Jim Henson, Lisa Henson, puppets, The Muppets, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, creativity, puppetry, The Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, television, animatronics. Frank Oz, Sesame Street, children's television, Sam and Friends, creativity, technology, Jane Henson, Harvard University, England, The Creature Shop

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

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 Sassafras is published by Hachette.

Since 2023, psychiatrist in Australia have been authorised to prescribe MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

You can read about some of the complications of how MDMA is prescribed here.

Encore: What happened when I tried MDMA therapy

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 truth.

Renate's father was actually a Nazi war criminal of the highest rank, and she had been conceived as part of an experiment to produce Aryan children for the German fatherland.

Catrine and Renate travelled through Germany and Eastern Europe to find the truth about her father and the home she'd been born into.

Eventually, they go to Israel, where Renate comes face to face with the children of Holocaust survivors. 

There, they bond over their shared attempts to find a way forward, out of the silences and hidden fears of their parents' dark pasts.

Children of the Third Reich: Three pasts three futures is published by Hachette.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison

It explores World War II, history, family trauma, intergenerational trauma, holocaust survivors, Aryan super-race, experiments on humans, genetic experiments, SS soldiers, the body keeps the score, Epigenetics, psychology, suicide, mental health, mental illness, healing, Jewish history, reconciliation, German history, Nazis, reckoning with the past, family secrets, absent fathers, Israel, Palestine, forgiveness, humanity, Hitler, war criminal, war crimes.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

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

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 Zealand.

Further information

Watch Urzila's latest comedy special 

Watch Urzila's TV sketch show on ABC TV

This episode of Conversations was produced by Nicola Harrison and the Executive Producer was Pam O'Brien.

It explores South Africa, comedy, family, domestic violence, alcoholism, Afrikaans, racism, violence, home invasion, stand up comedy, confidence, body image, migration, New Zealand, Australia, memoir, siblings.

Comedian Urzila Carlson regrets nothing

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 thrill.

Meg's stutter was something she did her best to disguise while building her career as a singer and songwriter in Australia.

But after going public about her speech impediment in a TedX Talk, Meg realised she no longer cared about hiding who she was.

This honesty led to a whole host of exciting new opportunities – including becoming the voice of Calypso in Bluey, and making a film with her husband based on the iconic Paul Kelly song, “How To Make Gravy”.

More information

This episode was produced by Meggie Morris. The Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.

It explores Papua New Guinea, DJ, filmmaker, being expelled from high school, creative arts, performance camps, eisteddfods, Rodgers and Hammerstein, love at first sight, quick wedding, spirituality, Christianity, Brisbane.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Encore: Meg Washington on the magic of music

Lawyer turned journalist Eileen Ormsby on her journey deeper and deeper into the internet's 'evil twin', where, under the cloak of anonymity, people sell buy and share anything a person is willing to pay for. 

Eileen Ormsby had just returned to university to study journalism when her friend told her about a website called The Silk Road.

Created by American libertarian, Ross Ulbricht, it was essentially like any other e-commerce marketplace, the kind that people use to order books and homewares, except that it sold illicit drugs and fake ids.

Eileen became fascinated with the platform, how it operated, who used it and where existed -- in a secretive part of the internet colloquially known as 'the dark web'.

As Eileen journeyed further and further into the darkest corners of the underbelly of the internet, she came across scammers, hit men and horrendous truths, some of which spilled out into her real life.

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

This episode of Conversations explores the dark web, Ross Ulbricht, libertarian, drug dealing, the deep web, FBI, CIA, AFP, undercover agents, Facebook, Meta, Google, Instagram, social media, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, AlphaBay, illicit drugs, addiction, murder, hitman, scams, bitcoin, crypto, crypto currency, investigative journalism, presidential pardon, assassination.

Drug bazaars, hitmen and hackers — why Eileen went deep into the dark web

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