Dr Kira Westaway has been on a ten-year mission to solve the mystery of how, why and when a giant ape called Gigantopithecus Blacki became extinct, and why nothing remains of this beast but thousands and thousands of teeth

Nazeem Hussain honed his comedy in Melbourne's suburbs in the 1990s. After his father left the family, his fearless mother taught Nazeem how to use humour to get bullies off his back

Mark Balla was on a business trip to India when he met two young men on a train. They invited him back to see their home, one of the world's biggest slums. This meeting changed the course of Mark's life

Dr Ameliah Scott pilots herself around remote NSW to take care of animals and have a cuppa with their owners

For years, Adele Dumont had been secretly pulling out her hair from the root so obsessively she created a bald spot at the crown of her head. Eventually, she learnt her compulsion had a name

After feeling burnt out, Jackie Carpenter spontaneously applied for NASA's Space Camp. She was the first Australian accepted, and it was the most transformative experience of her life

Julia Baird has been sustained through hard times by acts of "moral beauty". In a world marked by division, these gestures have the power to restore our shared humanity

Dr Robert Waldinger on what it takes to live a happy life 

The hardship, cruelty and loneliness of the mission system during the Great Depression didn't crush Aunty Ruth Hegarty's spirit. She found her voice, God and her family

After a life of controversy, crime and corruption, disgraced former police detective Roger Rogerson died last week, aged 83. Peter Hoysted met with Rogerson on several occasions

Louise Pryke is one of few people in the world who can read the ancient language in which The Epic of Gilgamesh is written. The mammoth, wild tale is still being deciphered from thousands of clay tablets

Dr Liz Allen is a demographer fascinated by Australia's demographic trends. But her own story is a remarkable case study in deviating from the norm 

Nancy Withers has been breeding and training kelpies for 50 years, but one dog stands out from the rest, and he changed her life forever

These are just some of the remarkable and quirky people who helped write the Oxford English Dictionary

At 19 years old Jane Perlez visited China in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. She would return there as a journalist decades later to cover the biggest story of the 21st century

In 1927 Francis Birtles set off on a grand adventure from London to Melbourne, through murderous mountain ranges and blustering blizzards, in Bean motorcar

International Chess Master and champion Irina Berezina credits her incredible chess-trained mind in helping her survive multiple international disasters

Costa is the friendly face of Gardening Australia, a devotee of composting, keeping chickens and developing insect hotels (R).

Dean Laws was in his 50s when doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease. For a time, he was devastated. Then he formed a running crew with his friends called 'The Dean Team', and made a plan to run the Sydney Marathon

Some years ago, Karin Bäumler found herself in a fight for her life after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In the thick of it all, making music was a refuge

Amar Singh's sense of belonging to Australia has only grown since he leant into his Sikh faith, growing out his beard and his hair, wearing a turban and committing himself to the service of his entire community

Voyager frontman Danny Estrin on his unconventional path from heavy metal to law and the Eurovision grand final 

Former top Detective Deb Wallace with ingenious and surprising stories from her working life smashing criminal gangs in Sydney

For 25 years Sandy wondered what became of the little yellow dinghy he left in Romania, after a months-long voyage from the UK. Could it still be waiting for him the marshes of the Danube Delta, ready for another adventure?

Melissa Lucashenko was a motorcycle detailer, a house painter, a prison advocate, and a game show contestant before finding her way as a writer

The actor and author thinks that nowhere in the world is the English language more poetic, colourful and persuasive than here in Australia

Alecia Simmonds with tales from a time in Australia's legal history when the jilted and broken-hearted could sue for redress in the courts 

Tom Holland on the glories, bloodshed and barbarianism which underscored the golden days of the Roman Empire

Antony Penrose grew up knowing little about his remarkable mother Lee Miller, who had studied with Man Ray in Paris, and become a model, a photographer, and a war correspondent. But then an unexpected find in the family attic changed everything

Lucy Godoroja deals in the business of buttons, and the stories each button carries with it from Bohemia, or Milan to her shop in Sydney, and then into the hands of passers-by

British-Australian journalist Hayley Campbell uncovers the secret society of the western world's death industry, run by people who have made death their life's work. CW: contains discussions of death and descriptions of dead bodies

Writer and journalist James Phelps takes you inside the bluestone walls and medieval-looking turrets of Australia's most infamous jail

Jon Owen on how he chose a life of 'intentional downward mobility' to help addicts, sex workers, and the homeless, from Calcutta to Mount Druitt to the Wayside Chapel

How a fashion-loving misfit from Sydney took over Hollywood with husband Baz Luhrmann, winning more Oscars than any other Australian (R)

Professor Ian Hickie has spent decades trying to understand clinical depression. Where does it come from? What role do genes play? And most importantly – what works to release its chokehold?

Brendan Watson took his Scouts promise very seriously as a young boy. He's leaned in to his pledge in some very unexpected ways, from Moscow to Mongolia and through temporary blindness back home again

Ecologist Katherine Moseby is helping Australia's bilbies, quolls, and stick-nest rats evolve to become tougher, faster and stronger, so they can survive the looming threat of more than 2 million feral cats (R)

Mick O'Regan met his feisty, brilliant wife Jo for the first time on a work brigade in Nicaragua. They fell in love and had a beautiful baby boy. Then quite unexpectedly, when Jo was in her 50s, Mick became her carer

Darryl Jones on the dramatic lives of Australia's city-dwelling native birds 

When David Hannan was a young man, he fled university and took a detour to the wild coral coast of WA where he became a lobster fisherman, before earning an Emmy for his underwater cinematography

Kylie Moore-Gilbert spent two years inside the Iranian prison system, secretly communicating with fellow women prisoners while she waited for news from Australia m1S0pN9LaolGIqsN7t7Z

Richard Flanagan was forever changed as a young man, when he was trapped for hours and almost drowned in an isolated stretch of river on Tasmania's wild west coast

Writer Kate Forsyth on how revisiting the story of a mythic Minotaur lurking in a labyrinth in Crete helped her realise that we all need monsters (R)

Zayd Dohrn’s parents were militant left-wing revolutionaries, and he was born while they were living underground, fugitives from the FBI (R)

Dr Merrick Ekins is Australia's leading expert in carnivorous sea sponges. Some sponges are secret killers, others are made up of glass and imprison tiny shrimp-like lovers for eternity, and others make love to themselves to reproduce

On a whim, Bruce Englefield bought a wildlife park in Tasmania and moved from across the other side of the world to make life better for Tasmanian Devils

The Danish-British author and comedian on her father's laissez faire attitude to school, and how this opened her mind and brought her to NASA's mission control room for the moon landing of 1969

From homeless teen to operatic stardom: how a job at the David Jones food hall changed the trajectory of Stephen Smith's life

In 2018, Shanelle Dawson's family were the subject of a hit true crime podcast which helped convict her father Chris Dawson of her mother's murder. Now she's reclaiming her own story and the story of her mother Lynette 

Pip Williams was diagnosed with dyslexia as a teenager. She grew up to write a novel inspired by the history of the Oxford Dictionary, which soon became an international bestseller

Penny grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and developed habits to try to ward off impending doom. It turned out she had been living with obsessive compulsive disorder for 30 years

Marine biologist Dr Edith Widder was inside a submersible searching for bioluminescence in the ocean depths when she saw a giant squid as big as a two story house (R)

Tony Wilson was always drawn to the world's great speeches. Then, without warning, he was called on to make the most difficult speech of his life (R)

How Jodie went from skateboarding in her home town of Albany to become a world surfing champion, frothing all the way

An unexpected DNA test result sent Penny Mackieson on a mission across the other side of the world, to find her real natural mother, and discover her identity

Dr Kira Westaway is a geochronologist who places modern and ancient humans in context by dating things found in caves. For Kira, how we understand ourselves now is tied up in the past (R)

Helen Pitt on how the luminous shells of the Sydney Opera House nearly didn't get off the drawing board

A chance encounter led Lovemore Ndou into his local boxing gym, and a lucky left hook became his ticket out of apartheid South Africa

Ben Gillies was a 15 year old drummer when Silverchair became a global sensation. After almost two decades of being a rock star, the band broke up, and Ben began to face his own demons

Lawyer and author David Gillespie has been on a mission to understanding psychopaths after realising he might have worked with one

Josh Niland on his mission to cook with fish eyes, fish liver, and fish sperm to help revolutionise how we cook and eat fish

David Marr with the story of his great-great-grandfather Reg Uhr, who led murderous expeditions with the Native Police during Queensland’s frontier wars CW: mentions the names of Aboriginal people who have died

Diego Garcia-Bellido is a palaeontologist who specialises in soft-bodied fossils from hundreds of millions of years ago. These perfectly preserved eyes, guts and nervous systems provide a window into the beginning of our own family tree, and into life on Mars.

Robyn Davidson on her adventures high in the Himalayas, her love affair with an Indian prince, and her late in life reckoning with her own story (CW: mentions suicide)

Jessica is an orchestral conductor, organ virtuoso and also a synesthete who 'sees' colour in her mind's eye (R)

James O'Hanlon digs deep into the secret world of spiders; complex and tiny lives most of us are either unaware or afraid of

Historian Katherine Pangonis with stories from five cities of the ancient world, from their splendour in antiquity to their comparatively modest twilight

Actor and writer Brendan Cowell with tender and funny tales from his boyhood as a child actor and a budding playwright (R)

How Suzie Miller went from being a trailblazing paper girl in St Kilda to a lawyer, then a playwright of the international hit  play Prima Facie

Suzie Miller with stories from her free range St Kilda childhood, her drama-filled life as a lawyer, and the inspiration behind her play Prima Facie

Meaghan Katrak Harris with stories from her life as a teenage mother, raising a multicultural family, and her working life as a social worker and an academic

Forensic scientist Dr Xanthe Mallett on her work analysing skeletal remains, investigating cases of wrongful conviction and studying the decomposition of the human body (CW: contains references to death and crime) 

Dog behaviourist Laura Vissaritis uses science and psychology to better understand what our dogs really are telling us

Nicholas Jose was living in China in 1989, when the military was sent in to violently quell pro-democracy rallies in Tiananmen Square. He left Beijing the next day and returned to a changed city

Sam Neill is a winemaker, a cancer survivor and a father. He's also an actor, who's made more than 100 films

Rachael Mead with the true story of Nel Law, who stowed away on a Danish ship in 1961 to become the first Australian woman to set foot on Antarctica 

Strategic analyst Sam Roggeveen says Australia needs to think more like an echidna when it comes to defence 

Dr David Sinclair is a longevity expert who believes ageing is a treatable disease (R) 

Kate Cole-Adams has discovered what happens to us while we dwell in the chemical oblivion of general anaesthetic (R)

Joshua Creamer went from apprentice butcher to one of a handful of First Nations lawyers in the country, working on some of the country's biggest human rights class action cases. After his life was turned upside down by tragedy, he decided to trek to Everest base camp to find solace in the Himalayas (CW: discusses domestic violence and suicide) 

Chadden Hunter was in his twenties when he found himself sitting around a campfire in the Ethiopian highlands, talking about his PhD thesis with Sir David Attenborough. The meeting changed his life 

When Bronwyn Sheehan's daughter befriended a little girl in year four, her eyes were opened up to the realities of life for children in care, and their carers

From the 1944 wartime referendum, to the 1999 vote on whether to become a republic, referenda always tell us things about Australia that aren't revealed in a normal federal election

Broadcaster Peter Goers was in his twenties when his parents died suddenly, in a plane crash outside New Orleans. Decades later, he's beginning to make sense of the loss

Writer Susan Johnson began an unexpected adventure when she moved to the Greek island of Kythera with her 85-year old mother Barbara (R)

When Kim Crotty was locked up in Dartmoor prison for growing marijuana, his two young sons were bereft. After he began writing bedtime stories for his boys from his cell, a new chapter opened up for him after he was released from jail (R)

After a serious brain operation, Anne Howell woke up in hospital with retrograde amnesia, thinking she was nine years old. With no real understanding of who she was or who she could trust, she set about rediscovering her identity (R)

The Tongan-Australian man on being privileged to see love in action in his grandparents, how a spiral into grief and anger led him to periodic detention, and how cutting hair today helps him steer young men away from a dark path (R)

Tom Nash was 19 when his limbs were amputated due to meningococcal septicaemia. After he began to navigate life with hooks for arms, he built a new life as a DJ (R)

Maggie Mackellar with stories from her life on a Merino wool farm on the east coast of Tasmania, and all of life and death that surrounds her through the cycle of lambing seasons

Dr Amy Clarke on the history of Big Things and our enduring fondness for kitsch and curious creations

Crispian Chan grew up in the shadow of a campaign of terror in Perth that engulfed his family restaurant and haunted him for years 

The historical novelist has seen enough action to last a lifetime from her days as a Middle East correspondent, and it was her mother's imaginative influence that led her to turn her fascination with history into new interpretations (R)

Coalminer turned broadcaster Craig Hamilton was in his 30s when he had a psychotic episode on Broadmeadows train station. In the aftermath, his life was completely changed (CW: mentions suicide)

Dr Robert Waldinger on what it takes to live a happy life 

Bertie Blackman on her unconventional childhood with her father the artist Charles Blackman

In 1979, Julie Dolan was named as the inaugural captain of the Matildas. Ever since, she's helped build the juggernaut from the ground up

Kim Rubenstein on the inner workings and history of the Australian constitution

John Gaden on turning his back on law and landing on the stage

Broadcaster Michael Parkinson with the life story of his late father John William - Yorkshireman, miner, humourist and fast bowler (R)

Dr Maddy McAllister's job as a marine archaeologist involves diving into the deep to uncover the artefacts and human stories sunk in shipwrecks (R)

Anna Funder on unearthing the story of the talented and determined Eileen O'Shaughnessy, George Orwell's first wife

After arriving in Australia from Yugoslavia as a boy, Peter Stojanovic began working at a Melbourne meatworks. Decades on, he's now a counsellor helping violent men change their behaviour

Jana Pittman became one of Australia's most famous athletes as a young woman. Then at age 30, she found herself at a painful crossroads

David Harasti with the story of how he opened a chain of underwater seahorse hotels to save an endangered species

Sarah Donnelley on her life working at Wilcannia Central School, on Barkandji Country 950 kilometres west of Sydney (R) 

Psychiatrist Dr Harry Freeman on the memorable patients, LSD, and medical epiphanies from his 50 years in psychiatry 

Hung Le and his family made a terrifying escape from Saigon in 1975, carrying one suitcase, a box of biscuits and some seasick pills. Decades after they fled, Hung returned to Vietnam to honour his late father's wishes (R)

Brendan Watkins on his search to find the truth about his birth parents and the failings of the Catholic church his discoveries unveiled

Author Mark Brandi is a keen observer of people, a skill he honed growing up in a pub in country Victoria, where the family’s Italian heritage was the source of scrutiny

Voyager frontman Danny Estrin on his unconventional path from heavy metal to law and the Eurovision grand final 

Rwandan-born comedian and playwright Oliver Twist on his years as a refugee and how his life as a storyteller began

The former captain of the Australian Women's cricket team shares what she's learned along the way, and how cricket has helped her in genetic counselling, her next career (R)

When Tim Flannery was a boy he found a palm-sized fossilised tooth of a prehistoric shark.The find changed the course of his life

Professor Toby Walsh on the rise of generative AI chatbots and their potential to overtake human intelligence

They have strange coats that look like they're painted on, and while their big Mickey Mouse ears are cute, their domestic dog-like looks aren't particularly exotic. But Africa's painted dogs are unlike any other carnivores on the planet

In 1966, Martin was 10 years old when he was sent to a Catholic Boarding school in North-West Tasmania. Decades later, he began his own reckoning with what had happened at the school (CW: discusses sexual abuse)

Wendy Liu has spent many years right up close to death. As a forensic counsellor she worked with families who had lost someone to an accident or violence, and as a grief counsellor she supports people surviving all kinds of losses. Wendy says her work brings her a keener appreciation of life

Maggie Beer started her working life at the age of 14 in a chenille bedspread factory. Two decades later, in a pheasant farm in the Barossa Valley, she found her dream job

An unexpected stroke temporarily robbed Ben Mckelvey of his ability to speak, write and understand words. Eventually, Ben re-learnt the art of language, but his brain, his identity and how he connected to others had changed forever

Writer Mark Dapin’s childhood was disrupted at the age of 10, when his mum fell in love with the lodger. He was then raised in an army town called Aldershot in the UK, which began his fascination with stories of crime and warfare

Anna McGahan was playing a prostitute on Australia's biggest television show when she found God, renounced nudity on screen and tried to become the perfect Christian woman

John Colapinto was singing a Beatles song in front of Bette Midler when he injured his vocal cords. The experience set him on the path to studying the human voice

Professor Mark Dadds has helped hundreds of troubled kids from his clinic at the University of Sydney. He feels an extra connection to them, as he was once a wild and rebellious boy himself

Sarah Percy with a new history of the world's frontline women soldiers

Marcia Hines arrived in Australia just 16 years old, and unknowingly pregnant. She planned to stay for six months, but 50 years later, she still calls Australia home

Dominic Riley on how a a chance encounter with a bookbinding monk named Brother Bede changed the course of his life

Nas Campanella grew up in a big Italian-Australian family, and she was six months old when she lost her sight. Nas then grew up to become one of Australia's most well-known TV and radio journalists  

Frank Palmos arrived in Indonesia as a green journalist looking to make his mark. He walked straight into a pivotal moment in the nation's history, which would culminate in 'The Year of Living Dangerously'

Jessica Kirkness on her luminous childhood with her grandparents Melvyn and Phyllis, who were both profoundly deaf

Debra Dank walks and talks differently when she's at home on Gudanji country, because she comes with this place (R) 

Dr John Paterson grew up in a tin hut in rural Darwin. He helped hold it down during Cyclone Tracy and has taken care of it so it still stands today. John learnt many lessons in that tin hut, which have followed him through life

Nova is a woman of many firsts — an Olympic gold medallist and Northern Territory Senator. She continues to strive for excellence while showing up for mob (R)

Leanne Liddle was just 18 years old when she became a policewoman, but after a brutal attack during a routine traffic stop left her unable to serve, she decided to fight for justice in a different way

Frances Peters-Little speaks about writing the story of her dad Jimmy's extraordinary career in music, and how he never lost his connection to his country.

For more than a decade now, Yolarnie Amepou has been navigating tribal conflicts along the Kikori River to help protect her beloved pig-nosed turtle. To everyone in this part of Papua New Guinea, she's known as "turtle lady"

Ruth Kissam was absent-mindedly perusing a noticeboard at a hospital in Papua New Guinea when she came across a flyer from the local morgue. That notice opened the door for Ruth into the world of sorcery and the plight of women accused of witchcraft

When Kaliopate Tavola retired from Fijian politics, he turned his attention to recording the fantastic stories of creation from his home island of Dravuni - tales of warlords, giant sea serpents and boats that could grow tall like a tree

Nunia Thomas-Moko grew up afraid of the reptilian creatures that lurked in Fiji's stunning forests. Ironically, she has become the country's leading expert in rare frogs and crested iguanas. She had to put on a brave face to catch them first

When Laisa Vulakoro was six years old she learnt the English words "famous" and "star". She would point to the night's sky on her tiny island, and tell its 300 residents that's where she was going

Author Michael Trant combines his love of the land with his passion for storytelling — writing his books while ploughing the paddock in a tractor

After a devastating divorce, Charlotte Ree began cooking her way out of heartbreak

Sarah Davis on her journey from corporate risk management to the paddle-powered adventures in shark-infested waters

Campbell Costello has one of the world's largest and most exciting consulting rooms in the world, for his job as a vet in outback Queensland (R)

Fergus Hynes found his true calling in retirement: listening to prisoners and helping them with their problems 

When Sonia Henry signed up to work as a GP in a remote mining town in the Pilbara, the experience changed almost everything she believed about Australia.

Actor Heather Mitchell on the family secrets and the fortune teller's prophecy which shaped her life (CW: mentions suicide and cancer)

Cameron Carr was a rising star in Rugby League when a shocking accident changed everything. A few years later he found a new path, in a sport known as 'Murderball'

Ben Bravery tells the story of his childhood in Logan, Queensland, how he went from a career at KFC to studying male satin bowerbirds and why being a patient led him to study medicine (R)

How Kris Kneen learned to look unblinkingly at their fat body, and find a new courage to be in the world

Muzafar Ali is a football-loving photographer from Afghanistan, now living in Australia. When he discovered the long history of Afghan cameleers in the outback, he set off, with his camera, to find out more

Andy West on how his family story led him a life teaching philosophy inside some of Britain's toughest jails

Australian violinist Charmian Gadd was a wild musical prodigy from the Central Coast when a zipper-inventing musician changed the course of her life (R)

Food critic William Sitwell with stories of eating out in history, from the wine taverns of ancient Pompeii to today's  molecular gastronomy

Sean Fong is a para world champion in jiu-jitsu. The 'gentle' martial art has allowed Sean to shatter any illusions that society might have about people with physical differences.

Chef Asma Khan uses cooking to connect with her family. After moving from Kolkata to England, she longed to return home to learn her mother's recipes. She did that, and brought them back to London, opening a restaurant called Darjeeling Express

Mandy Nolan didn't fit in as a child, in the country town where she grew up. But later in life, her differences became her superpower (CW: discusses domestic violence and addiction)

Former Detective Deb Wallace with stories from her working life in the NSW Police, where she was tasked with breaking up criminal gangs

Artist David Rankin grew up as the son of a bootmaker in suburban Sydney. He became an outback teacher, then  a a painter, before meeting the great love of his life, the writer Lily Brett

Tanya Latty is an insect scientist with a quirky taste in pets, and a keen eye for detail. But it's the lessons from her brainless pet slime mould that she's most fascinated about

Don Walker has written some of Australia's greatest songs, and they keep coming. But rock and roll's resident 'quiet bloke' could have led a very different life

Adventurers and extreme athletes, who jump off bridges and walk across deserts, have a reputation for being fearless daredevils who take unnecessary risks. But sport psychologist Dr Eric Brymer says feeling fear is vital to the mind of the adventurer

Historian Peter Frankopan on how the earth's climate has shaped human history

Two-time World Debating champion Bo Seo on how love and listening can improve how we disagree 

The bull rider and horsewoman has lived a life full of danger and drama, at the rodeo and outside it. Di's incredible experiences have taught her to lean into fear, rather than avoid it

From the naked athletes of Ancient Greece to the Jane Fonda revolution of the last century, sport and exercise have had a surprising hold on humans

As a young woman craving adventure, Marele Day hitchhiked on a catamaran sailing across the Indian Ocean. After befriending the French skipper, Marele discovered years later that he was a fugitive on the run.

Ky Furneaux spent 16 years in Hollywood as a professional stunt performer, falling, fighting and breaking glass on cue. She has managed to make her next life even more extreme — surviving in the wild, sometimes with just a knife, often naked (R)

 Damian Callinan with the grand love story of his parents Adrian and Kathleen, who met in 1946 at a football match. They were together for 62 years before a terrible accident changed everything (R)

Benjamin Dreyer has strong ideas about the English language, and how to transform books into the best possible versions of themselves. But he's not a member of the grammar police

Pádraig Ó Tuama survived conversion therapy and exorcism as a young gay man in a church in Ireland, then became a leading peace negotiator and a poet

Paul McVerry is an experienced cattleman and a stud breeder, who had a vision to fly a gift of cattle to India with the help of Dan Murphy

For Jenny Graves, the genetic history of Australia's unique wildlife holds a key to the future of human evolution.

Benjamin is an adventure paraglider and documentary maker. One day, while paragliding in central Mexico, he was forced to make a sudden landing in an isolated valley. There he encountered a vast swarm of millions of monarch butterflies, carpeting the forest floor and tree trunks. This experience led him to replicate the Herculean migration of this seemingly common butterfly. He launched his own flight along the thermal air currents which carried him all the way from Mexico to Canada.

Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason on what it takes to keep up with her seven children — all of them gifted classical musicians (R)

The ABC Sports presenter describes his life at 17, a year dominated by football, girls, beer, and a serial killer stalking his neighbourhood (R)

Toni Jordan grew up working in a TAB and going to the greyhound races. Then she grew up to become a best-selling novelist

Sophie Matterson fell in love with camels at first sniff. After working with them for years, she hatched a plan to walk across the vast Australian continent with five humped companions - Jude, Delilah, Charlie, Clayton and Mac

Dean Laws was in his 50s when doctors told him he had Parkinson's disease. For a time, he was devastated. Then he formed a running crew with his friends called 'The Dean Team', and made a plan to run the Sydney Marathon

Barry Humphries was a legend of the screen and stage, but throughout his career, he remained astonished at the success of Dame Edna and her enduring appeal

Annette Trevitt with a tale of real estate, family and complicated grief set in the Pilbara mining town of Karratha

He's one of the world's most acclaimed opera stars, but Teddy Tahu Rhodes did everything he could, for a very long time, to avoid his destiny on stage (R)

Om Dhungel grew up in Bhutan, where his people became the target of a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign. Overnight Om became a refugee, eventually rebuilding his life and family in his beloved new home of Blacktown

Jackie Huggins with the story of her father Jack, who was a surf lifesaver, a rugby league player, a soldier taken prisoner in the Fall of Singapore, and the first Indigenous Australian to work in the post office (R)

Only six men, out of thousands, survived the horrors of the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Bill Sticpewich was one of them

When Bronwen Edward's big brother Mark took his own life, she decided to channel her grief into something much bigger than herself

Zoologist Milly Formby serendipitously became passionate about shorebirds while working as a tapestry weaver. She decided to learn how to fly, build her own plane and follow their path around Australia

High school English teacher, Brendan James Murray with funny, heartbreaking, inspirational and strange tales from his working life (R)

Danijel Malbasa grew up in an ethnically-mixed family in the former Yugoslavia. When the country was on the precipice of war, the Malbasa family was metaphorically and literally torn apart

Journalist Jackie Dent explores the the world of anatomists and dissectors, the people who open up human cadavers to uncover their secrets

Parenting expert Maggie Dent on on how parents can raise confident and well-adjusted girls

Writer Susan Johnson was in her 60s when she decided to make a new life on the Greek Island of Kythera, with her 85-year old mother Barbara along for the adventure 

Matt Hall made his first solo flight at 15 years old and has been addicted to life in the air ever since. He became a top gun fighter pilot and after serving for more than 20 years, he still hasn't come down to earth

Phil Kafcaloudes grew up hearing stories about his legendary grandmother, who became a spy for the British in World War Two. It was even said she killed a man to protect her secret

Charlotte was Australia's first children's author. She came to the colony of NSW from London in 1826, and now her trailblazing, tragic and dramatic life story has been written by her descendants, Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell (R)

From Charlie Brown to Franz Kafka, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen explores why being a loser can be a good thing

Billy Bragg grew up in working-class Barking, east of London. The expected path was to go from school to the local car factory, but Billy had his sights set further. After discovering punk as a teenager, Billy found a way to make his voice heard and even a brief stint in the army couldn’t keep him away from a life in music.

Gillian has the best job in the world — travelling overseas to bake 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 (R)

Micronations are home to fascinating, often eccentric characters who construct their self-declared countries in their own image, with pomp, pageantry and passports to boot.

Max Beck had a wild, lively and at times devastating childhood, growing up in Bendigo's old Crown Hotel

Roland Breckwoldt fell in love with the idea of being a cowboy as a child, so at 15 he railed against his strict German father's wishes, left home and found himself in the majesty of the Queensland outback

Over her many decades as a practising psychiatrist, Veronica O'Keane developed a fascination for our memory, how it functions in the brain, and the role it has in shaping our identity

Fungi have given us many gifts, from penicillin to food, but they can also be quite scary. Dr Alison Pouliot spends her time trying to explain these strange alien-like things

Justice advocate Keenan Mundine broke the cycle of crime and incarceration in his own life after a chance meeting at a birthday party (CW: mentions suicide, references to drug use. Strong language. Discretion advised) (R)

Saul Griffith believes that the key to solving the climate crisis is to electrify everything, starting with our homes. The inventor, engineer and entrepreneur is spearheading this mission in his own postcode with Electrify 2515, which aims to have all household machines powered by renewable energy

Sarah Holland-Batt's dad Tony was a loving father, her intellectual mentor and her friend. At 18, she became one of his carers. Later she battled an aged care system which let him down in the worst way possible (R) 

Lee Berger, the National Geographic Explorer in Residence and real-life Indiana Jones, has found remarkable things underground. His discoveries are revolutionising what we understand about our own origins

John Simons is fascinated by the lives of animals which have become stars. From a famous hippo at London Zoo, to a wombat owned by a Pre-Raphaelite painter in England, these are the rock stars of the animal world

Briana Blackett was a journalist working in Qatar when she realised her baby son Max wasn't responding to his name. When Max was diagnosed with autism, and in time her second son Freddy was too, she left Doha to begin an entirely different life (R) 

Neville White was trying to heal from the trauma of the Vietnam War when he travelled out to a remote community in Arnhem Land called Donydji. Their stories became increasingly intertwined as he spent more and more time there

Gail Jones grew up in an old quarantine station, wondering about the soldiers who stayed there on their way home from WWI. Her new novel imagines life on the eastern front in 1917

Alex Braczkowski is a big cat exert and National Geographic explorer. For years he's been following a rare group of tree-climbing lions, including the charismatic, enigmatic, three-legged Jacob

Writer Louise Kennedy spent her early childhood just outside of Belfast. It was the height of The Troubles and violence was ever-present. After that violence came too close to home, Louise’s family moved to the Republic of Ireland. After 3 decades working as a chef, a chance invitation to a writer's group lead to an unexpected new career.

Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett on his life in music, environmental action, and politics, and the end of The Oils. 

Amar Singh's sense of belonging to Australia has only grown since he leant into his Sikh faith, growing out his beard and his hair, wearing a turban and committing himself to the service of his entire community

One of the most influential disability rights activists in history tells her story of her fight for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human (R)

Rodney Fox was torn apart by a great white shark and it took 462 stitches to put him back together again. He was then instrumental in filming Jaws, the most terrifying shark film of all time. But over time, this salty seadog has become the apex predator's fiercest protector (R)

Esther Freud has many famous men in her family, including psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. But it is her mother's story which has left the greatest mark on the writer

Fintan O’Toole grew up in an Ireland undergoing great change but before the country could move forward, it would have to deal with its sometimes dark past.

Once journalist and author Kate Legge recovered from the news her husband of 30 years was cheating on her, she uncovered four generations of infidelity through his family

Jess Johnston found skydiving after a tough few years, and while it might sound like a contradiction, plummeting towards the earth at 400 km/h saved her life

No, he's not 'that' Richie Ramone, but this Richie Ramone's passion for punk is just as fierce (R)

For a thousand years, Colditz Castle has existed in some form, perched on the edge of a cliff in eastern Germany. From a royal hunting lodge, to a madhouse, and then most famously as an inescapable prisoner of war camp during World War II

As a child, before she escaped communist Hungary, Bo Remenyi had no ambitions. But when she got to Australia all of that changed. She's gone from cruising the casino floor as a high-stakes professional poker player, to saving the lives of children in remote Australia (R)

When Margaret Humphreys received a letter from Australia, she had no idea it would unearth a huge, heartless scheme that forcibly removed children from their homeland and sent them alone, isolated and confused to the other side of the world

Darwin's Ben Graetz on becoming one of Australia's best-known Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Drag Queens (R)

Franceska Jordan with the story of her remarkable mother Isabella — a South African trade unionist and anti-apartheid activist who inspired her daughter to carry on her community work

Growing up in Wangaratta, Judy Ryan learned we all have a responsibility to look after each other. When she moved to inner-city Melbourne that meant caring for the injecting drug users dying in her neighbourhood

Mark Trevorrow on how the music of composers Anthony Newley and Paul Williams influenced the course of his life and began the evolution of his alter ego, Bob Downe (R)

Kris Helgen loves mammals and he's ventured to some dangerous, isolated places to find them. In fact, Kris has helped name and discover more than 100 magnificent mammals

The new chief conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, on the chair of spikes that accompanied his early musical career, and why he doesn't tone down his Italianness in Australia

Two years ago, Karin Bäumler found herself in the fight for her life after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In the thick of it all, making music with her husband Robert Forster became her refuge

After a serious brain operation, Anne Howell woke up in hospital with retrograde amnesia, thinking she was nine years old. With no real understanding of who she was or who she could trust, she set about rediscovering her identity

DNA expert Dr Jeremy Austin on his 14-year quest to help solve one of Australia's enduring military mysteries: the identity of the 'unknown sailor' (R)

Taranaki descendent Rachel Buchanan with the story of priceless Maori artwork and their role in the ransom of a child, kidnapped by Italian gangsters

How women cricket players saved the "gentleman's" game and repaired diplomatic relations between England and Australia

Melissa Redsell was 16 and in her last year of school when she found out she was pregnant. Although many people told her she'd 'ruined her life' she went on to prove everyone wrong

Firie Bronnie Mackintosh is built from tough stuff - she attends emergencies to cut people out of crushed cars and rescue them from burning buildings. Her strength was forged in Rotorua, New Zealand, where she experienced a violent undercurrent and the first frothy coffees, introduced by her parents

Writer Tony Birch with tales of his Fitzroy childhood including his grandmother Alma's 'op shop fever', his love for pine cones and blankets, and the macabre holiday he lived through when he was 5 years old (R)

Listened to around the world by locals, spies and military officials, Radio Australia has long been rated by its hundreds of thousands of global listeners as more informative than the BBC World Service. So why don't we know anything about it?

Hilton Koppe on how his life as a soccer-obsessed country GP changed forever when he became a patient himself

Deborah Lawrie had her first flying lesson at 16, then became a flying instructor herself. But when she applied for a job as a pilot, she found herself in the fight of her life (R)

Vic Simms, Jen Cloher, Vika and Linda Bull, Rob Hirst, Elena Kats-Chernin, William Barton with stories from their formative years

Novelist John Grisham with his life story; from his work as a trial lawyer, to writing, and how he became involved in a movement using DNA testing to exonerate the innocent (R)

Academic Danielle Celemajer on how the Black Summer bushfires brought she and her rescue pig Jimmy into a terrible proximity with the inferno, changing both of their lives forever

Valerie Browning moved to the northern deserts of Ethiopia as a naive young nurse in 1973. A chance meeting on the streets of neighbouring Djibouti changed her life, and women's health in the region

Debra Gavranich with the story of her mother Marija, who left her tiny Croatian island to make a life with a man she’d never met, in Far North Queensland's Cassowary Valley (R)

Dr Irving Finkel on the ghosts who joined the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians in their day to day lives (R)

Tim Ferguson was in the midst of a high-flying comedy career when he started experiencing 'whacky symptoms'. In his early 30s, doctors told him he had Multiple Sclerosis

When Dr Genevieve Campbell heard the intoxicating music of Tiwi song women, it made her hair stand on end. Immediately she knew she needed to meet the women, and these relationships have changed her ideas of what music is

Dave Gleeson is known for his blistering performances in The Screaming Jets and The Angels, but he grew up singing at Mass in Cardiff, with a mum who opened their home to hundreds of foster children

One of America's oldest lighthouses was built in 1716 and survived the Revolutionary War. Its first two keepers met dismal ends, but Sally Snowman was always enamoured by it. She is the first woman to care for the lighthouse, and now she will be the last (R)

When Cynthia Banham survived the unthinkable, she had to reinvent herself, with the support of her family, and the kindness of the Sydney Swans AFL team

Edita Mujkic fled the Bosnian War in Sarajevo with her two children, 50 American dollars in her pocket and no real plan. It took her almost two years to get her husband Goran out of the deadly siege situation, all the way from the Lake District in England

Lifelong stutterer Jonty Claypole on how fluency can be a barrier to our creativity, authenticity and persuasiveness

At 90, Elizabeth Chong recalls the familiar abundance of the Queen Victoria Market of the 1930s, how her father popularised the dim sim in Australia and the 37,000 people she has taught to cook (R)

Tony spent three decades in and out of jail. Inside Hobart's Risdon Prison, he joined a debating club with Chopper Read, and found his voice for the first time. Then a few years ago, on a fishing trawler far out to sea, he began the painful process of changing his life (R)

Professor Kelvin Kong is one of Australia's leading ENT surgeons. The proud Worimi man changes the course of children's lives by looking inside their ears (R)

As a Chinese-Australian girl growing up in the era of the White Australia Policy, artist Lindy Lee always felt that she didn't belong. When she became a student of Zen Buddhism, big shifts began in her life, and her art (R)

The author tells the thrilling, surreal story of Yuri Gagarin, the loyal communist and father of two who became the first person to journey into space, in a capsule perched on top of a modified Soviet R-7 missile (R)

Artist Ken Done grew up in a country town in NSW, drawing, fishing and listening to the Argonauts. Before he became a became a full-time artist, he had a wild career in advertising in the 1960s

Greg Fisher, CEO of Sydney's first queer museum, wanted to replicate his family's warm, loving spirit with his own future family. He and his wife didn't see his being gay as an obstacle

Niki Savva has seen ten prime ministers move in and out of the lodge during her decades as a political reporter, but one of those leaders stood out to her from the rest

Linguist Kate Burridge with the story of how Old English began on a small, damp island on the periphery of the world (R)

Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith on the mystery of the octopus and giant cuttlefish, and why cephalopods are the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien

Victor's refugee mother was widowed at a young age, his grandparents were tortured and killed by the Soviets, but Victor says he comes from four generations of radical optimists

When Eva's parents fled from their home in communist Poland, she was told to "ask no questions". But once she got to the 'free world' she couldn't stop asking questions, trying to reclaim her stolen childhood

The actor on the late love of his life, his wife Joan Washington, and the final message she left him

Gruen's Dee Madigan on her turbulent early life as one of four children to a former Catholic Priest 

Nick Cave on how living through addiction, love and unthinkable loss has changed his inner life

Michael's professional rugby career came to a brutal end after dozens of concussions took their toll on his brain

When acrobat and circus performer Anna Yen decided to become a playwright, in the process of finding out her family stories she unearthed a new facet of Australia’s Chinese history

Sarah Parry first saw a tall ship sailing into Sydney Harbour in 1965. Two decades later, in an abandoned Hobart warehouse, she began building her own full-sized Square Rigger from scratch. In the process, she realised it was time to change her own life

Hannah Kent with the true story of the Prussians who fled Europe for a new life in South Australia (R)

After the loss of his mum Carol, James Crawley tried to push down his own grief. Then he watched 35 hours of raw and turbulent footage of his Dad Richard grieving in real time (CW: loss, grief and drug use)

David Heilpern with stories of drama, crime and heartache from his 21 years as a country magistrate (CW: references to drug use and sexual assault) (R)

Heather Rose  on her decades-long quest to make peace with life and loss after a tragedy befell her family when she was a girl (CW: grief and loss)

Paulie Stewart made a name for himself as the frontman of legendary Melbourne punk band Painters and Dockers, but he's also spent much of his life campaigning on behalf of the people of East Timor

The singer-songwriter shares memories of her mother's sacred, ancestral mountain, surviving childhood cancer and being rescued via a message on AM radio after a double volcanic eruption in Papua New Guinea (R) (CW: Some listeners may find parts of this conversation upsetting. Please use discretion when listening)

The Danish-British author and comedian on her father's laissez faire attitude to school, and how this opened her mind and brought her to NASA's mission control room for the moon landing of 1969

Diana Nguyen's mother would walk out of her performances at interval in protest of her career, but Diana forged on and in the process healed this mother-daughter relationship

Almost half of Australian adults struggle with some level of literacy — writing a shopping list, or reading a text message in private. Jo helps her students turn their lives around

The French horn is made up of metres and metres of brass coiled around and around until it opens into a big bell. Let Peter Luff lead you through the maze of this mysterious instrument

Peter FitzSimons has written many books on Australian military history, but pulling out the remarkable stories from the Battle of Long Tan was a long process, despite the fact that many of the participants in this great defining moment are still alive

Animal communication specialist, Justin Gregg on killer whales' grief behaviour, the Piping Plover's broken wing strategy, and what would happen if humans toned down the need to be 'why specialists'

When Lamorna Ash began to explore her Cornish ancestry she started work on a rusty yellow fishing trawler called the Filadelfia, scaling fish, gutting them and hauling in the nets (R)

When Carol, an Australian, and Buri Kidu, a young Papua New Guinea man, fell in love in the 1960s, their partnership defied convention (R)

Ray Seidler was a brilliant doctor and a family man, whose secret struggle with depression ultimately claimed his life. Now his son Jonathan is helping to change the story when it comes to his own mental illness (CW: mentions suicide, drug use) 

Costa is the friendly face of Gardening Australia, a devotee of composting, keeping chickens and developing insect hotels (R)

Mat Rogers on football, family, stepping out of his Dad's shadow, and stealing the Queen's spoons (CW: mentions suicide) 

Who was the legendary chair maker? An emancipated convict? An Irish refugee? A First Nations man? All we know is that he lived in a tree

Brisbane choir director, Astrid Jorgensen shares how she thinks in sound, and why it's not about you, darl, when you come to sing in a group

Aaron Fa’Aoso on the mistakes, heartaches, and lucky breaks on his path to success as an actor and producer

 Dale Kent is an esteemed scholar of the Italian Renaissance who grew up in Australia. Rejecting her Christian Science upbringing, she forged an unapologetic life of her own design (R)

Crime writer, Peter Doyle delves into the notes and photographs kept by his uncle, Detective Sergeant Brian Doyle on the Kingsgrove Slasher and other cases that he helped crack 

From Scotland's Orkney Islands, stories of how a chance meeting in a pub led Andrew Greig to climb the Himalayas, how golfing helped him recover from a near-death experience (R)

From walking alone across Antarctica, to crossing the Simpson Desert using wind, Geoff Wilson has led a life full of adventure. Content Warning: Graphic discussion of natural disaster death toll

Chris Pepin-Neff grew up as an identical twin in a small town in Connecticut. When he was four years old, his family suffered a terrible loss. Then Chris grew up to help change history (CW: loss and grief) 

Recorded in 2013, celebrate the seven-decade long stage and screen career of the remarkable actor (R)

Dai Le tells the story of her family fleeing Saigon and travelling across 2 oceans to make it to Australia, and how a sense of fairness drew her into public life 

Dr Christina Zdenek wants to change our minds about Australia’s deadly snakes, not just because their venom holds healing secrets

When cooking teacher Anna Kharzeeva began a quest to cook her way through an iconic Soviet-era book of recipes, her grandmother Lena became her guide

Joanne Petersen recalls working as a personal assistant to The Beatles' manager, the freedom of the Swinging Sixties in London and eloping to the Bahamas with a Bee Gee

The conservationist is on a quest to see all 2600 species native to Australia, before time runs out

David Read was one of the first doctors on the ground in Bali, 20 years ago and what he saw there turned him into a leading figure in disaster response

Kyra Maya Phillips on her family's search for home, from Morocco's Atlas Mountains, to Israel, then to Venezuela and beyond

Pauline Menzcer is one of the legends of Australian surfing, but she had to fight to get the recognition she deserved after leaving Hawaii as the 1993 World Champion with just a broken trophy in hand

The stage and screen actor looks back at his mother's magical influence on his childhood imagination, and his life in character

 Palaeontologist John Long found his first fossil in a Melbourne quarry as a 7 year old. He grew up to unearth new clues as to how we became  human (R)

The former captain of the Australian Women's cricket team shares what she's learned along the way, and how cricket has helped her in genetic counselling, her next career

How a bush kid from Magnetic Island graduated to an ashram in India and came to harvest cacao with an ancient, Indigenous tribe on the Amazon River

After Nova Weetman's partner died, the children's author started writing from and about grief

True crime journalist Jack Hoysted tells the story of the life and times of the man known as the 'Mr Big' of organised crime

Rachel Perkins' is one of the country's great storytellers, and now she's turned the lens on the bloody conflicts that broke out across the continent after the arrival of the British colonists

Reverend Bill Crews on the moment which changed how he saw his own life story, and his ideas on how we can all cultivate compassion, tolerance, empathy and love in difficult times.

Mike's evolution came as a shock, when he was fired from Columbia University and started working in a deli

The story of an Austin-driving Australian maverick who died in mysterious circumstances (R)

The former frontman recently uncovered boxes from his adolescence in his attic, and he was amazed at his early, detailed plans to take over the music industry

The author describes his early life during the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war and how arthouse films and illegal street photography provided him with an escape

Uncle Jack was forcibly removed from his mother as a baby and denied his Aboriginality. A one-off trip to Fitzroy connected him with a family he didn’t know about, and promptly landed him in jail (R) (CW: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners please be aware — this interview contains the voice of someone who has died)

Sarah Donnelley on her life working at Wilcannia Central School, on Barkandji Country 950 kilometres west of Sydney

The outback vet with stories of treating racehorses, camels and the odd chimp as he zigzagged around the Pilbara from the 1970s onwards, and how he came to meet the legendary red kelpie

The Coast Watchers' story is little known, but these civilians played a crucial role in protecting Australia from the advance of the Japanese Empire

Deborah Prior was one of more than 2000 mixed-race babies born to white British women and black American GI's during WWII (R) 

Tom Gleeson discovered and honed his distinctively caustic, laconic style of humour in some unlikely places

Early aviation's most dramatic event saw courage, tragedy and a miraculous rescue involving the whole town of Albury (R)

Right up until the very first game, Women's CEO at the Brisbane Lions, Breeanna Brock wasn't sure that the women's league would ever become a reality

Sam Vincent was a struggling writer when a freak accident led him to unexpectedly take over his family's farm

As a boy, Simon Longstaff's life was changed by one of the most searing ethical dilemmas imaginable (R) 

Professor Kelvin Kong is one of Australia's leading ENT surgeons. The proud Worimi man changes the course of children's lives by looking inside their ears.

Lisa Blair navigated waves as tall as high-rise buildings, dodging cargo ships, icebergs and several near-death experiences to sail around Antarctica alone

Darryl Jones has an enthusiastic curiosity about wild birds that, against all odds, flourish in Australia's cities and towns

Alex Landragin was born into a champagne-making family in the French village of Verzenay. When he was five, his family began a new life in Australia. Then a freak accident changed everything (R)

Krissy Kneen grew up under the strict control of her grandmother, Lotty, who was the eccentric and sometimes cruel matriarch of her small family. Krissy was forbidden to investigate Lotty's past or ask why she'd come to Australia from Slovenia via Egypt. The extraordinary truth of Lotty's life could only be told after Lotty's death (R)

David Newheiser was raised in a fundamentalist Christian family. When he fell in love with a Buddhist, his parents cut him off and his Dad wrote a book called 'When Good Kids Make Bad Choices'. But then, unexpectedly, they reconciled 

Being a single mother and student doctor in 1960s Ireland was merely the 'first act' in Caroline's gutsy adult life. She became a pioneering obstetrician, delivering sometimes contraband contraception, and babies, for fifty years (R)