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1 week ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Meggie Morris |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler
In 2018, Dr Bo Remenyi was made the Northern Territory’s Australian of the Year for her work as a paediatric cardiologist. But her path to receiving that honour, and to her work in remote communities, has been filled with unexpected twists and risks. After escaping communist Hungary as a child, she got her first job flipping burgers in a Townsville Hungary Jacks. From there, she put herself through medical school by cleaning the very lecture theatres in which she was studying.
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2 weeks ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler
Morris Stuart met his Australian wife, Barbara in London in the 1960s. The pair led a youth group attached to a nearby church, and initially tried to ignore their growing feelings for each other. Morris was a young, Guyanese activist who was descended from African slaves, and wasn’t ready to face the social reality of marrying across racial lines. Morris and Barb fell in love and married several years before the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
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3 weeks ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Alice Moldovan |Nicola Harrison |Richard Fidler
A few weeks ago, some former guests of Conversations, and our two presenters gathered at the Adelaide Town Hall. The event was a live storytelling hour, with the theme 'Mistakes were made', in front of a rapt audience of 800 forgiving souls. Writer and social researcher Rebecca Huntley shared her dramatic foray as a first-time driver. Journalist Rick Morton recounted a story about a run-in between his brother's drug- and alcohol-fuelled friends, with a cameo from the rom-com 'Bridget Jones' Baby'.
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4 weeks ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler
Journalist Ros Thomas spent a year travelling around the world to research something all of us have experienced — loneliness. Through The Churchill Fellowship, she met an old man who had learned to thrive through crushing grief with the help of a small, desktop robot. Ros visited a share house in Sweden where pensioners live with young asylum seekers, who care for each other like grandparents and grandchildren.
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1 month ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Alice Moldovan |Sarah Kanowski
Kate McClymont is chief investigative reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. She grew up on a farm in NSW, and during university, funded her start in Sydney by setting up a busking booth in Kings Cross. Passers-by would pay her to answer a question, have an argument, or verbally abuse them. Kate's start in crime reporting came from an early job writing for a gossip column. She was instructed to cover a wedding of a family member of known criminal figure, George Freeman.
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1 month ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Alice Moldovan |Nicola Harrison |Sarah Kanowski
Growing up, Krystyna Duszniak's father didn't speak a word of English to her, instilling in her a love of the Polish language, literature, history and culture. As the child of immigrants who had survived World War II, history was all around Krystyna, and while her patriotic father taught her so much about his homeland, she found he left out a vital part that turned out to be the focus of her career.
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1 month ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Alice Moldovan |Sarah Kanowski
In 2019, Australian writer Geraldine Brooks was forced into a world of practicalities when her beloved husband, Tony, collapsed on the street in the United States and died. She had to immediately manage finances and family life, organise a funeral and work out what had happened for Tony to so suddenly and unexpectedly die. As time went by, Geraldine realised she had never let herself properly grieve his loss and the loss of their imagined future together.
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1 month ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler
Irish-French singer and performer Camille O’Sullivan grew up in County Cork, with her Irish father and French mother. Although she sang throughout her youth, she was persuaded to become an architect and went on to win awards for her work. But after she nearly lost her life in a harrowing car crash, she decided she had to be honest with herself and become the singer she always wanted to be. Camille has brought her unique voice to the songs of Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf, Nick Cave and Radiohead.
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1 month ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler
Sociologist, Lindsey Fidler’s parents met and married in the 1960s in East Anglia, United Kingdom. They would go to jazz clubs and socialise with the men from the American Air Force base nearby. Lindsey’s father was known as The Typewriter King because he could fix any typewriter in the area. He had contracts to repair machines on the nearby base, and even in London, where he was responsible for some of the Royal typewriters. This was the world Lindsey knew — the one she was born into.
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1 month ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Alice Moldovan |Sarah Kanowski
Nadia Mahjouri is a Moroccan-Australian author and counsellor. Growing up in Launceston, Tasmania, Nadia didn’t know anyone else who had her height, dark skin and curly hair. She knew her father was Moroccan, but that was the extent of the information she had about him. When she had her first baby at 21, Nadia decided to go to Morocco to try to find him. All she had was her family name, a photo of her parents on their wedding day, and the name of a suburb in Marrakech.
