Conversations

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 (R)

When Kaya Wilson came out to his parents as transgender, after a near-death surfing accident and just weeks before his father's death, it revealed a cache of family secrets

Artist Judy Cotton reflects on the Australia that formed her, and the legacy of her exacting mother — a champion sheep breeder and passionate homemaker

Surfing writer Tim Baker on how the hormones which saved his life after a cancer diagnosis fundamentally changed his experience of being a man

The Australian author on the bedtime story she wrote for her young sons, to try to explain the grief and uncertainty of their father's leukaemia diagnosis

Christie splits her time between training for road and track wheelchair races, holding down several jobs, and raising her family. The Tokyo Paralympics will be her seventh as a competitor, but Christie almost gave up marathons after the 2013 Boston Marathon, and the most frightening experience of her life (CW: mention of suicide) (R)

Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason on what it takes to keep up with her seven children — all of them gifted classical musicians.Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason is a former English academic and the mother of seven extraordinary children.All of them are gifted classical musicians.Her eldest daughter, Isata wrote and performed her first piano concerto at the age of eleven.Her son Sheku mastered the cello and performed at the royal wedding of Harry and Megan Markle.Every day the seven Kanneh-Masons, who range from early teens to the mid-twenties, fill the family home with glorious music.Further informationHouse of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons is published by OneworldTo 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.

Academic Will Visconti on the true history of the most famous cancan dancer in Paris at the turn of the century, and her later work taming lions

Tony Hoang was a teenage heroin dealer in Cabramatta at 13, grappling with addiction at 21, then cried out to God for a sign. What came next was more literal than he could have imagined

It was love at first sight, when Jack Ashby first set eyes upon a platypus specimen as a young university student