Published by ABC Australia
The best story you'll hear all week, told by the people who lived it. This podcast is no longer in production.
Listen on Apple Podcasts3 min
Australia is a wild continent with some of the most intense weather on the planet. From massive bushfires to severe cyclones and devastating flooding; extreme weather is becoming part of our everyday lives. How do we take what we’ve learned from our past to better prepare and adapt for our future?
31 min
When Anita realises Bendigo's golden dragon will soon be too old to parade, she’s catapulted into the project of a lifetime: build a new dragon, the longest in the world, and make sure the over-a-century-long streak won’t be broken.
17 min
Perhaps a peek behind the curtain of America’s dream factory will be the inspiration Miriam needs for her own storytelling journey? The experience proves to be clarifying… just not in the way she expects.
23 min
Hospitality became a refuge for Jess after the trauma of their childhood. But despite the ostensibly powerful position they find themselves in - calling the shots on the door of Melbourne’s trendiest restaurant - they soon realise this refuge is toxic too.
30 min
It’s a recognisable sound for those who frequent inner Sydney: the 75 year old Chinese Australian restaurateur is known for playing his beloved instrument during work hours, wowing crowds of customers over freshly steamed dumplings.
25 min
Fee is prepared for a ‘trip of a lifetime' when she lands in Brazil for a tour of the Pantanal wetlands. But when her tour guide asks her for a seemingly simple favour, Fee finds herself in a terrifying situation that she can’t find a way out of.
21 min
Ronny is inspired by the power of the songs of slain freedom fighter Arnold Ap, and he too takes up music as his weapon of choice. He sets about writing his own song to strengthen the movement in the hopes his people will see the Morning Star flag raised over a free West Papua
25 min
Like so many children of divorce, Sam has pretty much always hated Christmas. Yet, year after year, the Melbourne transplant would return to Western Australia and face his family. Why did he think this year - with his new girlfriend in tow - would be any different?
27 min
Sooji wakes up on the concrete of a busy road in Strathfield in Sydney. She’s been hit by a car, but instead of waiting for help to arrive she does the one thing no one expects her to do – she runs.
27 min
Now retired, Canberra’s most prominent self described ‘child mime’ recounts a storied career: from falling out of a tree at age seven, to miming through an electrical storm, to unnerving the late great Marcel Marceau… and the day the wheels came off and it all went to sh*t.
21 min
Gooniyandi and Gadgerong man Scott Wilson grew up in Broome, WA, steeped in the yarns of his dad riding horses through the Kimberly. But Scott’s not the rugged outdoorsman his old man is, so he escapes into the pages of comics to find some new role models. But why can’t he see any Blak faces in these superhero adventures?
25 min
Margie is a go-with-the-flow kind of person, a free spirit. But all good things come to an end...
23 min
Jess Walton is a childhood cancer survivor and amputee. For years they've used a prosthetic leg, despite the discomfort. This is the story of how they went from being an ‘inspiring disabled speaker’ to finally saying f*ck the leg.
21 min
It’s 1999, and the last Christmas of the century is fast approaching. Geoff Law gets a call from Bob Brown that sends him on a tall task: to decorate the world’s tallest Christmas tree.
22 min
Growing up, AJ Lamarque was always just ‘one of the girls’. But in his twenties, he inadvertently joined a very big, very American college fraternity. Strangely enough, this crash course in male friendship — in the strangest of settings — taught him a great lesson.
28 min
Many years ago, when MySpace reigns supreme, a young Marty Smiley takes a leaf straight out of the American Revolution playbook and stages a boycott of his high school canteen. The cause? The skyrocketing price of muffins. The unlikely name of his rag-tag group of revolutionaries? The Kids of Liberty.
2 min
There are times where you feel like you're just a side-character in someone else's narrative, or maybe you're off-stage waiting in the wings. But then something happens and suddenly you're the main character, the hero — or villain — of your own story.
26 min
As the demands of school, teenagerhood, and family life increase, so do the numbers of Vanessa's guinea pig herd.
28 min
In this one, Romeo is Kesh. And Juliet is aptly, Jules. And they are fearless.