Conversations

Latest Episodes:

The secret psychosis of a first-time mother Jun 03, 2024

Show notes

When psychologist Ariane Beeston started having delusions after the birth of her son, and hallucinating that he was a dragon, she had to learn how to become the patient.

Ariane Beeston thought that when her son was born, she would feel that immediate rush of love that everyone told her to expect, and that motherhood would come naturally to her.

But that's not what happened.

Instead, Ariane started having delusions about her own death, she became paranoid that social services would take her child away from her, and she hallucinated that her baby boy was actually a dragon.

For months, Ariane hid her symptoms, afraid and ashamed of what she was feeling and seeing.

When she gathered the courage to ask for help, Ariane, a trained psychologist, had to learn how to become the patient, as she navigated a diagnosis of postpartum psychosis.

Further information

Because I'm Not Myself You See is published by Black Inc. Books

Resources

COPE: Centre of Perinatal Excellence

Support lines and resources recommended by COPE

PANDA National Helpline 1300 726 306 — available Monday to Friday, 9am to 7.30pm, Saturday, 9am to 4pm AEST/AEDT.

PANDA: Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia post natal psychosis information

Pregnancy Birth Baby information on postpartum psychosis (Australian Government website)

Gidget Foundation Australia (focuses on emotional wellbeing of expectant parents)

Postpartum psychosis fact sheet from COPE

Postpartum psychosis information (Royal Women's Hospital Melbourne)

To 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.

Japanese gangsters: the secrets of the Yakuza May 31, 2024

Show notes

Jake Adelstein's dogged reporting on Japan's organised crime earned him a nemesis in Tadamasa Goto, one of the most powerful Yakuza bosses in the country. When Jake's life was on the line, he found protection in surprising places

Writer Bonnie Garmus on rejection, writing and success in your 60s May 30, 2024

Show notes

When Bonnie Garmus tried to sell her first novel, it was rejected 98 times. Then at 66, she wrote a novel called Lessons in Chemistry, which sold four million copies around the world.

Bonnie Garmus had wanted to be a novelist since she was five years old.

Decades later, she was a copywriter, an open-water swimmer and a rower when she tried to sell her first novel.

After many rejections, she realised it would never be published.

One day Bonnie was at work when a male colleague took credit for one of her ideas. In a moment of anger, she then started writing a novel which would become Lessons in Chemistry.

Set in the 1950s and early '60s, it tells the story of Elizabeth Zott, a chemist and mother who hosts a cooking show that ends up teaching women about a lot more than food.

Bonnie was 66 years old when it was published.

The book has resonated with millions of readers around the world and inspired men and women to change their own lives.

Further information

Lessons in Chemistry is published by Penguin

David Wengrow: everything we know about the human story is wrong May 29, 2024

Show notes

Archaeologist David Wengrow has discovered an entirely new way to think about the history of humanity, from the origins of farming, cities, democracy and slavery to civilisation itself.

What sort of world could we create if we stopped believing that inequality is the price of progress?

More than a decade ago, archaeologist David Wengrow started exploring this question with his friend the late David Graeber, an anthropologist.

Together they unearthed a new picture of humanity's past and our shared future.

The two Davids found many examples from human history of societies which flourished without kings, bureaucracies, palaces and poorhouses.

They realised that the notion that humans have to surrender equality for modernity is not only untrue; it's boring, because it fails to recognise how politically creative humans can be.

On Anzac Day in 1935, a tiger shark vomited up a tattooed human arm inside a Sydney aquarium.

When Phil Roope looked into the cold case he found an astounding true tale of Sydney's fascination and horror around sharks in the 1930s, a severed arm emblazed with boxing tattoos, a homicide, police corruption, a Gladstone Bag, and a thriving smuggling racket for drugs, stockings and lead paint.

Further information

Shark Arm is published by Allen and Unwin

Further information

The Dawn of Everything is published by Penguin

Richard's conversation with David Wengrow was recorded live at the Sydney Writers' Festival

Matt Hall's life at supersonic speed May 28, 2024

Show notes

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 (R)

The forgotten treasures of desert dwellers May 27, 2024

Show notes

Archaeologist Julien Cooper digs up the remote deserts of Sudan and Egypt, finding forgotten artefacts, which tell the uninterrupted, thousands-year-old story of the nomadic peoples of Northeast Africa

Billy Bragg — the boy from Barking May 24, 2024

Show notes

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 his sights set further, and even a brief stint in the army couldn’t keep him away from a life in music (R)

How Rafael Bonachela let his inner showgirl out with Kylie Minogue May 23, 2024

Show notes

Rafael Bonachela was born in the dying years of Franco’s Spain, into a patriarchal culture that didn’t appreciate little boys who wanted to dance.

At the make or break moment of his choreography career, the last person Rafael expected to hear from was Australia’s pop princess — Kylie Minogue

As the eldest of four brothers, his father expected him to be an example of academic achievement and bravado.

This hardline approach slowly drove his father away from the family, though when it came time to say goodbye, Rafael saw an unexpected side of him.

At the age of 17, when the wide world beckoned, Rafael left his home country without a backward glance, grasping with both hands the opportunity to become a professional dancer.

After a last ditch attempt at becoming a choreographer, he received an email from Kylie Minogue. And the rest is history.

Further information

momenta is Rafael's newest full length work for Sydney Dance Company. It premiers on May 28, 2024.

Watch Rafael's episode of Creative Types with Virginia Trioli here.

The power of the extra dad May 22, 2024

Show notes

When Dugald Jellie was growing up in country Victoria, it was dads — his own and his friends' — who opened the world up for him, and as a father himself, today he is paying it forward

Bronnie and the jaws of life May 21, 2024

Show notes

Firie Bronnie Mackintosh attends emergencies to cut people out of crushed cars and rescue them from burning buildings (R)

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