ABC Conversations

Home
ABC Conversations

In-depth interviews heard on ABC Radio across Australia, online and via podcast. Inappropriate comments will be removed at the discretion of the ABC.

Although they do read and appreciate them, Richard and Sarah aren't able to respond personally to comments made here. If you want to give formal feedback (or suggest a guest!) you can use the Suggest a Guest form on our website: www.abc.net.au/conversations

About the program:
Apple Podcasts Australia: Biggest Podcast 2020, Most Downloaded Podcast 2015-2019, and most downloaded Australian podcast

in 2019. Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met. On any given day Conversations might take you from a remote cattle station, to inside the cockpit of a space shuttle, to a family home in the middle of a war zone, to a hospital on the side of an African volcano, to the mysteries of the human brain, or to the pitch of the MCG. Conversations is funny, provocative and often deeply moving.

30/10/2025

Listen to Sarah's interview with the founder and director of Lune Croissanterie, Kate Reid.

Growing up in Melbourne, Kate was an asthmatic child who developed an extremely close bond with her dad.

He would care for Kate during her frequent asthma attacks by operating her whirring nebuliser, staying next to her as she regained her breath in her bed.

Kate became obsessed with her dad’s favourite sport — Formula 1 racing.

Once Kate experienced the cars' vibration ripping through her body at a race, she decided she would become an aerospace engineer and work in the area she and her dad loved so much.

And she did, only her dream job turned sour, and Kate’s life took a dangerous turn when she developed depression and anorexia.

Kate returned to Australia for treatment, and it was thanks to a public library in Melbourne that she started on her next obsession, the one that would heal her.

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/kate-reid-f1-croissants-anorexia-paris-business/105934658

📸: Kate Reid, credit Myles Kalus.

29/10/2025

Today, it's Richard's Conversation with Walter Marsh and the strange tale of the artist who stole 3,000 butterflies.

The culprit was Colin Wyatt, a Cambridge-educated ski champion, mountaineer, wartime camouflage expert, artist, and amateur naturalist whose high-flying exploits cut a path from the Alps of Europe to a London court room to a final expedition to the jungles of Guatemala.

Walter Marsh has written down the strange and confounding tale of the gentleman butterfly thief in his new book.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/butterfly-theft-history-museums-holotypes-species-naturalist/105929838

1. Three gaps in a drawer spark an international search, February 1947. Photo: Sun News-Pictorial, Courtesy State Library of Victoria
2. Butterflies in the collection of the Australian Museum, Sydney, Walter Marsh
3. Colin Wyatt, with accordion, leads party in chorus of Norwegian folk songs at Kosciusko Chalet, 1946. Photo: PIX Magazine, Courtesy State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy ACP Magazines Ltd
4.Colin Wyatt as a desk-bound public servant, mid-divorce, October 1946. Photo: Alec Iverson, Courtesy State Library of New South Wales and ACP Magazines Ltd

28/10/2025

Today it's Sarah's conversation with Dr Katie Treble.

When Katie decided to swap the good vibes and beautiful beaches of Byron Bay for work with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) she knew she would be in for a shock.

Nothing could have prepared her for the desperate need she encountered in the Central African Republic (CAR) in the midst of a civil war.

But Katie was even more affected by the courage and kindness of her colleagues.

She came away from her months in Bria, CAR knowing that her time as a humanitarian doctor would change her own life in deep ways, and so when she got back to Australia she started the work of trying to make sense of it all.

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/katie-treble-doctors-without-borders-msf/105928082

📷All photos supplied by Katie Treble

1. Treating a malaria patient in the hospital in Bria;
2. A boy in PK3, the camp in Bria. This camp is one of the biggest in the country and houses up to 36,000 people displaced from their homes by conflict;
3. The Emergency Department in peak malaria season;
4. MSF projects in the CAR.

27/10/2025

In 2022 Sarah spoke to Justin Carter, who together with his brother Chris have ridden motorbikes ever since they were kids.

As adults, they wanted to go on an outback adventure together.

Their dad, Neville, was much less experienced with motorbikes, but he didn’t want to be left out.

So in January 2019 the three men set off from Lismore to motorbike across New South Wales, then down the Strzelecki Track into South Australia.

Their final goal was Neville’s family’s hometown of Loxton, SA.

Nev wanted to find some trace of his dad, who had died when Nev was just 15.

When they reached the town, Chris stumbled on a precious artefact from the family's past which they had thought was lost forever.

You can watch a film about the family's adventure online here, dedicated to Neville Carter, who died in 2023: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thestrez

And listen to Sarah's interview with Justin here: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/justin-carter-strzelecki-track-father-brother-motorbike/105928198

📸: Supplied

23/10/2025

Hear Sarah's interview with writer, singer, podcaster and comedian Rusciano.

Growing up in Melbourne in the 1980s, Em was a serious young athlete, focused on hurdles, when a high kick up-ended her ambitions.

She was a creative, energetic child who seemed to always be busier than everyone else.

As a young, stay-at-home mum, Em appeared on Australian Idol, having never performed on stage before, and this opportunity launched her career in radio.

Em and her husband had two more children and she found herself at a loss during COVID lockdowns.

Em felt she was drowning, and couldn’t work out why things had always seemed so much harder for her than for those around her.

As an adult, Em received two life-changing diagnoses, all while being put through the wringer of perimenopause.

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/em-rusciano-adhd-autism-perimenopause-motherhood/105910050

📸: Em Rusciano, credit: Abbie Davis, Mrs White

22/10/2025

Listen to Richard's interview with historian, Alison Bashford.

Alison was in a London library when she discovered a ginormous palm print of a gorilla, taken two days after it died at London Zoo in the 1930s.

She had no idea whatsoever about why someone had made this mysterious print, or why it had been kept in pristine condition for all these years.

Alison plunged into researching the history of the hand, from fairground palm reading to Jungian analysis.

She was transported into the magical, scientific and pseudo-scientific attitudes to markings on the body.

She encountered Victorian wellness entrepreneurs and celebrity palm readers whose influence reached all the way to former British Prime Minister, William Gladstone:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/alison-bashford-palm-reading-wellness-psychology-hands/105908102

📸:
1. Professor Alison Bashford. Image supplied.
2. The Spatulate Hand, “essentially Protestant.” Illustrated by Rosamund Brunel Horsley, in Edward Heron-Allen, Practical Cheirosophy. A Synoptical Study of the Science of the Hand (G. P. Putnam’s, 1893), 67.
3. “The Reference Hand,” from Mrs. J. B. Dale, Indian Palmistry (Madras and London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1895), plate I. Copy in author’s possession.

21/10/2025

Listen to Sarah's interview with psychologist and Ottolenghi recipe developer, Helen Goh, recorded at Brisbane Writers Festival.

Helen was born in Malaysia in the year of the Fire Horse.

This zodiac birth year was a big threat to the Gohs, and her parents had to make a heartbreaking decision that would affect the family for a generation.

The Gohs eventually emigrated to Australia, and Helen went on to sell pharmaceuticals to doctors, before she pursued her honours in psychology.

A stint as a cafe owner followed, then Helen went back to basics as a chef's apprentice in Melbourne.

She followed her heart to London, and encountered an 'Aladdin's cave' of goodies in a deli in Notting Hill, which was owned by Yotam Ottolenghi.

Helen has come to understand the psychological benefits of baking, and now interweaves two of her life's enduring interests:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/helen-goh-ottolenghi-baking-psychology-malaysia/105897350

📸:
1. Helen Goh. Credit: John David
2. Helen as a child with her foster sister and carer, Peggy. Image supplied

16/10/2025

Today it's historian and bookseller Edmund Goldrick with the hair-raising, forgotten tale of the escaped Australian prisoners of war who stumbled into another, hidden genocide, and tried to stop it.

Early in the World War Two, Australian soldiers who had been captured by the Germans escaped by leaping from a moving train.

They found themselves in unfamiliar territory, in the lands of Yugoslavia.

The Australians on the run found themselves in the company of dangerous men, who planned to use the cover of war to commit genocide.

One of the Australians fell in with a Serbian Royalist group, and when he discovered their leader’s plans, he acted as a double agent in their ranks, determined to find a way to warn the Allies that their man in Serbia was determined to conduct mass murder.

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/edmund-goldrick-world-war-two-serbia-yugoslavia-pows/105876978

1. Ross Sayers (Bottom Left), Robert Wade (Top Left), Radivoje Milojević (Top Right), Predrag Bogdanović (Bottom Right);
2. Ronald Houghton Jones (left) and Horace Spencer Wills, Italian PoWs;
3. Ross Sayers (front, centre) at the Strmac Monastery, a Serbian Orthodox church located in the Prekovce hamlet, in September 1943.

15/10/2025

Hear Richard's interview with journalist, Ariel Bogle.

Ariel has plunged into the strange world of conspiracy theories for her new book, co-authored by Cam Wilson.

She found that when things feel wrong and unfair, sometimes people will look for answers in some of the more febrile corners of the internet.

Add political fragmentation and the megaphone of the internet to the mix, and conspiracy theories are fast gaining traction Australia.

Some of these beliefs are imported from America, and others are home-grown.

In researching her book, Ariel met people who believe there are microchips in vaccines, and that the law isn’t real, but QAnon is.

She also met those drawn into the cult-like world of sovereign citizens and tried to understand what lured them there in the first place:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/ariel-bogle-conspiracy-theories-sovereign-citizens-reasons/105875094

📸: Teresa Tan

14/10/2025

Today it's Sarah's interview with actor Griffin Dunne.

Growing up in Hollywood, Griffin’s parents threw legendary parties, including one where Sean Connery saved him from drowning in the family pool.

In his teens, Griffin hung out with famous actors and directors at his aunt’s house, the legendary writer Joan Didion.

Then as a struggling actor in his 20s, he shared a Manhattan apartment with his best friend, the actress Carrie Fisher and Griffin went on to achieve his own success, including a starring role in the cult horror film An American Werewolf in London.

But in 1982, the murder of his younger sister Dominique, and the devastating outcome of the infamous trial that followed, changed his family forever.

Griffin Dunne’s memoir is called The Friday Afternoon Club.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/actor-griffin-dunne-family-memoir/105868990

10/10/2025

Journalist Daniel Nour denied his sexuality into his 30s.

Daniel grew up as the only son in a Christian-Egyptian family in a “very Anglo neighbourhood” of Sydney.

Throughout primary school, he was bullied for looking different.

“All of this was too much for me, and I was just sad,” Daniel told Sarah Kanowski on ABC’s Conversations.

Then, when he was 11, Daniel noticed he was attracted to boys, but buried his feelings after learning from his church’s teachings that it was wrong.

“I remember reading little excerpts from verses from the Bible that were terrifying in their condemnation … They absolutely condemned homosexuality: ‘It is an abomination,'“ he said.

As a teenager, Daniel didn’t consider that he was gay, with homosexuality deeply stigmatised in his community.

“The idea of being gay was so out there that I couldn't even really metabolise it for myself,” he said.

“Gay people were … an embarrassment and something we didn’t talk about.”

Even so, Daniel’s curiosity remained. Under the guise of homework, he’d do Google image searches on topics like Greco-Roman Wrestling — “just for research”.

He also had epic crushes on handsome film characters, from Disney’s Aladdin to the stars of The Mummy movies.

Seeing Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the Scorpion King made his heart race.

“He was so beautiful, so muscular and so huge and tan,” Daniel said.

During his 20s, despite his attraction to men, Daniel remained tightly closeted.

While on a trip to Egypt, he denied being gay: “No, no, no. This guy loves women,” he said.

“I lied through my teeth. It was sad … but there’s a logic in it because it was unsafe for me.”

Daniel has always lived with the cultural and family expectation that he’ll find a wife and have children.

“The pressure has always been there,” he said.

“I indulged it by dating girls with little success all through my 20s — I just felt that I had to play that role.”

In his early 30s, Daniel declared on a national reality TV show that “marriage is between a man and a woman”.

In its wake, despite being celebrated by his church, the torment of trying to separate himself from his sexuality left him depressed and having “terrible panic attacks”.

“This isn't going to work. Something has to give,” he told himself.

Daniel began seeing a therapist who specialised in supporting q***r people from migrant backgrounds.

For q***r people of colour, coming out can be a lot more nuanced.

In Daniel’s case, he didn’t have a place that was culturally safe — he worried he would be exiled from his cultural and faith communities.

“Instead, I was able to forge for myself — slowly — a support network of close friends,” he said.

Daniel says his Egyptian-Christian family haven’t embraced his sexuality.

“Denial runs deep,” he said.

“My parents know that my partner is not just my special friend or my housemate — he’s really my life partner.”

Now he’s out, faith continues to be an important part of Daniel’s life, and he attends a supportive q***r-friendly church.

“I’ve found in them a refuge and grace without exclusions …They say, ‘We appreciate all of you,’” he said.

“I feel more whole, I have to say, and I feel like I have found a place that accepts me and celebrates me.”

✍️ Story by Fiona Purcell

🎧 Stream Daniel Nour’s full Conversations interview on ABC listen.

09/10/2025

Listen to Richard's interview with historian, Tom Trumble.

Deep in the years of World War II, Australian commandos in the Pacific theatre executed a cunning plan to sneak up on Japanese warships in the occupied Singapore Harbour.

They managed to get away with an incredible operation, but in doing so, triggered intense paranoia and embarrassment for Japan.

The Japanese were furious, and were convinced Chinese-Singaporeans were behind this humiliating setback.

They enacted a terrifying regime of massacres, arrests and torture.

Japanese authorities suspected Elizabeth Choy and Robert Heatlie Scott were involved with the sabotage, and the two paid dearly for that assumption during their time in prison.

Tom tells the story of these two survivors, and of the remarkable Operation Jaywick itself:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/tom-trumble-world-war-two-singapore-elizabeth-choy-japan/105851592

Address

Website

http://www.abc.net.au/conversations/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when ABC Conversations posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Want your business to be the top-listed Media Company?

Country:

City:

Conversations on Facebook

Although they do read and appreciate them, presenters Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski aren’t able to respond personally to your comments. Inappropriate comments about our guests, presenters or other commenters, will be removed at the discretion of the ABC.

To give formal feedback (or suggest a guest!) we encourage you to get in touch via the Suggest a Guest form on our website: www.abc.net.au/conversations About Conversations

Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met. On any given day, Conversations might take you from a remote Chinese village, to inside the cockpit of a space shuttle, a family home in the middle of a war zone, a hospital on the side of an African volcano, inside the depths of the human brain, or to the pitch of the MCG. Conversations is funny, provocative, and often deeply moving.

How to listen