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6 days ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Alice Moldovan |Sarah Kanowski
Winnie Dunn was born into a big Tongan family in Western Sydney but she felt conflicted about her heritage growing up. While at high school the Chris Lilley character, 'Jonah from Tonga’, became a national joke and her first trip to Tonga as a teenager was a disaster. But over time Winnie’s understanding of what it means to be Tongan evolved, and at the age of 28, she became the first Tongan Australian to have a novel published.
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1 week ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler
Jamila’s craniopharyngioma had been growing for years, unbeknownst to her. In hindsight, it was her son who gave the first clue, when he stopped breastfeeding overnight at 11 months old. Today Jamila is an author, a broadcaster and the deputy managing director of Future Women, dedicated to achieving gender equity in Australian workplaces.
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1 week ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Alice Moldovan |Sarah Kanowski
Whale and dolphin researcher, Barry McGovern’s love of sea creatures started in Cork, Ireland, when as a child he met the county’s solitary, friendly dolphin, named for the singer Dusty Springfield. Barry grew up on Ireland’s West coast, in a tiny surfing village where he knew all the bird calls off by heart. His interest in animal science led him to Edinburgh Zoo, where he fed cassowaries and regularly, accidentally spooked a flock of Chilean flamingos.
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2 weeks ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Alice Moldovan |Sarah Kanowski
Erna Walraven is a former senior curator and was one of the first women to work at Sydney's Taronga Zoo in the 1980s. She was born in The Netherlands, to parents who were involved in the Dutch resistance during World War II. Erna's love of languages took her to Spain, where she lived for many years with her widowed sister and young nephew. Erna met a penniless Australian backpacker and fell in love, settling in Sydney.
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2 weeks ago | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler
Gillian Bell has the best job in the world — baking sumptuous and heartfelt wedding cakes, using foraged and fresh produce to tell a couple's story through taste, texture and fragrance. Cake has been a staple in Gillian's life, through immigration, adventure and loss. Her motto is 'has whisk, will travel'. Gillian was a teenager when her family immigrated to Australia from Sussex, England in 1969. She eventually trained as a social worker, and met a family who had fled Communist Czechoslovakia.
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3 weeks ago | 
abc.net.au | Nicola Harrison |Alice Moldovan |Richard Fidler
Adam Liaw’s family comes from Singapore and Malaysia, where his grandmother found herself widowed with three children at age 25. She won the lottery and was able to survive by renting a cafe business and keeping her children in school. After Adam's parents married, the family emigrated to Australia when Adam was three-years-old. He and his brother sped through school in Adelaide and Adam went on to become a lawyer.
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1 month 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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1 month 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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1 month 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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1 month 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.
