Listen Now

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

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