Conversations

Judith was nearly 50 and dealing with grief, menopause and a world in climate crisis when the unthinkable happened

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)

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)

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

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 babiesChristian lives in the tiny town of Nhulunbuy right on the tip of the Northern Territory.His job there is an unusual one.Christian doesn't work in the mines like most of the whitefellas in town.He's a midwife, working with the Indigenous women of remote Arnhem Land to help them birth their babies.Further informationLearn more about Christian's research into pregnancy and birthDiscover the program to train women as Djakamirr, to help Yolŋu women give birth on their own countryChristian also recommends the book Why Warriors Lie Down and Die by Richard Trudgen as a valuable resource on Indigenous AustraliaTo 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, singers, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.