Conversations

Jenny Briscoe-Hough on the uncomfortable truths which saw her set up Australia's first ever not-for-profit funeral home (R).
After her mother died, Jenny Briscoe-Hough had an epiphany about the business of funerals.
Although her family brought in their own flowers and had a simple service, the bill came to $11,000. A short time later, Jenny began thinking about setting up a not-for-profit funeral service in her local area.
With the help of a documentary and a crowdfunding campaign, she and the community of Port Kembla raised more than $120,000 to buy an old fire station in town.
This is now where Tender Funerals operates, helping families prepare their dead for burial or cremation.
On the day of the funeral, family and friends can wash and dress the body themselves, bring flowers from their own gardens, and run the service the way they want it.
Learn more about the Natural Death Care Movement.
Watch the trailer for Lynette Wallworth's documentary which helped begin the funding campaign.
Watch the Australian Story episode about Tender Funerals.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Nicola Harrison. The executive producer was Pam O'Brien.
It explores death industry, funerals, grief, grieving, how to grieve, Western attitudes towards death, funerals, ritual, charity, crowd funding, power of community, dying, how to die well, mothers, daughters, filmmaking, Lynette Wallworth, after life.
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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

From wearing red stilettos on her first day of university and travelling solo into rural Egypt, to relocating to the United States with four kids in tow, Margie Warrell created her own life for herself off the dairy farm.
Margie grew up on a dairy farm in Victoria, the eldest daughter in a big Catholic family. 
It was assumed she would either enter the convent or marry a farmer. But Margie knew she wanted a very different life.
First, she branched off into the big smoke to go to university; then she packed her terrible backpack from the Army Disposal Store for a yearlong solo adventure around the world.
Margie went on to survive an eating disorder, an armed robbery, and family tragedy to create her own big, bold, beautiful story.
Now, she helps other people make big, bold choices for their lives.
Content Warning: this episode of Conversations includes reference to eating disorders, armed robbery and suicide.
Margie's latest book is called The Courage Gap, and is published by Berrett-Koehler.
You can find more information about Margie's work and her other books at her website.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.
It explores farming, agriculture, invisible siblings, moving out of the country, motherhood, miscarriage, eating disorders, bulimia, anorexia, marriage, expatriate life, Washington DC, politics, Congressional chiefs, leadership, coaching.

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).
Tony grew up in inner city Melbourne in the 1950s and '60s.
His grandmother taught him to waste nothing. 
So Tony and his siblings would scour the streets for bottles, lead and copper to sell, and for wood from demolished houses to use for firewood.
His grandmother even ran a sly grog shop on Sundays to make extra money.
One day, however, Tony was sent to spend Christmas with a nice middle-class family in a leafy suburb.
When they insisted he stay on with them, he began plotting his escape.
Tony's short story collection, Dark As Last Night was published in 2021 by UQP.
Tony's other books include Women and Children, published in 2023, and his latest book Pictures of You.
This episode of Conversations explores Australian life, Melbourne, Thrift Shops, Saving, grandparents, frugal living, social history, social life in Australia, families, origin stories, books, writing, Australian literature, short stories, penny pinching.

Writer Drusilla Modjeska has built a career exploring the extraordinary lives of pioneering women writers and artists, who have never stopped asking important questions about gender, freedom and expression.
Drusilla was born in England right at the end of the Second World War.
She was raised to be a well-behaved and self-effacing young woman, in a very conservative time in history.
But Drusilla escaped this version of herself by marrying very young and moving to Papua New Guinea, and then to Australia.
On the other side of the world, her eyes were opened to different ways of being, and Drusilla went on to build a big career exploring the lives of pioneering women writers and visual artists.
In writing about the lives of women artists, Drusilla was eventually led to writing about her own mother, Poppy, whose creativity and independence were stymied by marriage and who was committed to a psychiatric institution when Drusilla was 12 years old.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.
It explores surrealism, surrealist art, art of the Pacific, Claude Cahun, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Clara Westhoff, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Moore, Gabriele Münter, Kandinsky, Lee Miller, Dora Maa, Picasso, painting, World War 2, boomers, conservatism, trad wives, feminism, manosphere, Louis Theroux, toxic masculinity, equal rights, misogyny, psychiatric treatment for women, institutionalised, women of world war 2, The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, the fany.
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.

New York Times columnist and author M.Gessen on the slow strangulation of democracy, happening right now in Trump's America.
M Gessen grew up in the Soviet Union and migrated to the US as a teenager before returning to Russia in the 90s to cover the country's brief attempt at democracy and then the slow slide back into autocratic rule under Vladimir Putin.
M's insight into the mindset of the autocrat offers some clarity on why such leaders do the things they do and how they see the world.
This Conversation was recorded at the Brisbane Powerhouse, as part of the Brisbane Writers Festival.
Further Information M Gessen is an author and New York Times columnist, their latest book is Surviving Autocracy
This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan, Nicola Harrison is the Executive Producer.
It covers US politics, President Donald Trump, democratic institutions, the Soviet Union, state terror, state tyranny, Vladimir Putin, journalism, protest, ICE, Minneapolis, autocratic rulers, power, dogma, mindset, democratic freedom, voting in elections, Hannah Arendt, Milan Kundera, mutual aid, organising.
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, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.