Christie Whelan Browne on her 'dream' for Britney Spears – and choosing to speak up

You might know her best from Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell, but over the past 20 years, Christie Whelan Browne has become one of the most in-demand stars of the Australian stage, appearing in Britney Spears: The Cabaret, The Producers, Shane Warne: The Musical and Muriel's Wedding. But the thing th…

Fran Lebowitz on smoking, Trump and today's young people being another species

When Fran Lebowitz was growing up in suburban New Jersey in the 1950s, she won a school award for being “the Class Wit” – and in her 50-year career as a writer and speaker, she’s repeatedly earned that label. Among her countless famous aphorisms, this zinger: "The best fame is a writer's fame. It's…

Luke Bateman: Former NRL star and gambling addict, now lumberjack ‘bookfluencer’

Luke Bateman is perhaps Australia’s most unlikely book critic – a former rugby league star and recovered gambling addict who works as a logger on a remote Queensland property. While hardly your average inner-city literary type, Bateman had always loved reading – especially fantasy books – but livin…

The New Yorker's Patrick Radden Keefe on investigating 'an unnatural death'

Investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe has made a career out of chasing the kinds of stories that most people would be wise to leave alone. The New Yorker writer is drawn to powerful institutions and the people at their heart – from the Sackler dynasty, whose pharmaceutical company created t…

Bourdain and Batali's 'right-hand' woman Laurie Woolever on her tell-all book

New York food writer, editor and podcaster Laurie Woolever spent the early years of her career assisting two very famous chefs: first Mario Batali, then Anthony Bourdain, for whom she worked for nine years. Woolever was also, for much of this time, an addict – using alcohol, marijuana and sex to ge…

From finance to front row: Australian fashion boss Marianne Perkovic

Marianne Perkovic spent decades working in the finance sector. In 2006, she was the youngest chief executive of an ASX-listed company and in 2018, as a banking executive, she faced a grilling at a royal commission. This is not the standard path for nailing the best seat at Australian Fashion Week. …

Stephanie Alexander on writing, eating, air-frying – and The Cook’s Companion turning 30

Stephanie Alexander is a national icon: an internationally renowned cooking guru, best-selling writer and inspirational founder of a nationwide kitchen-garden scheme for schoolkids. She's also the final arbiter of kitchen disputes in homes all over Australia – resolving disagreements about how to s…

Bob Carr on grief and 'the left-over life' after his wife's death

Bob Carr has done hard jobs before. He was premier of NSW for 10 years, and later served as foreign minister under Julia Gillard’s government. But when his beloved wife, Helena, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in 2023, he faced the hardest job of his life – learning how to live without her. Carr …

Courtney Barnett on songwriting, her deadpan delivery – and what she did next

In this episode, we talk to Courtney Barnett, who broke into the musical mainstream a little over a decade ago as an Aussie singer-songwriter with deadpan delivery, with work veering from the witty and rambling to something evoking Margaret Atwood. The Grammy-nominated artist chats to Konrad Marsha…

Kathy Lette on female betrayal: ‘More painful than divorce’

Kathy Lette is a comic writer and pioneering voice in contemporary feminism whose first book, Puberty Blues, was published in 1979. Co-authored with Gabrielle Carey, it catapulted her into the public eye, horrifying her headmistress mother with its graphic depictions of teenage sex and drug taking.…