Conversations

Diana Nguyen's mother would walk out of her performances at interval in protest of her career, but Diana forged on and in the process healed this mother-daughter relationship. (R)
Diana Nguyen knew she was born for a life on the stage when she discovered dancing while staying in a nunnery as a child.
Her love affair with the arts, however, fractured her relationship with her mother, who had escaped Vietnam by boat and wanted her eldest daughter to be 'more' than a performer.
But a trip to her motherland helped heal this mother-daughter relationship, and after years of walking out of her performances in protest, Diana finally saw her mum from the stage as she took her bow.

At 48, Bill Hayes moved to New York. He took up photography, and never anticipated the surprise of falling in love with his neighbour, Dr Oliver Sacks,  a neurologist, a naturalist and a university professor. (R)Doctor Oliver Sacks became famous for writing case histories of his patients in books, including The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, and An Anthropologist on Mars.
At 75 years old, Oliver had never been in a relationship, until he fell deeply in love with his neighbour Bill Hayes, who was decades younger than him.
Bill and Oliver lived together until Oliver Sacks died in 2015, in his early eighties.
Further information
Bill's memoir Insomniac City was published in 2017 by Bloomsbury.
This conversation was recorded at the 2017 Sydney Writers' Festival.
The producer was Nicola Harrison and the Executive Producer was Pam O'Brien.

Louise Philip had just scored her breakout role on Australian television, in Bellbird, when a horrific car crash threatened to derail the life she was forging for herself. (R)
Louise was 15 years old when she convinced her parents to let her drop out of high school to become an actress.
She had just scored her breakout role on Australian television, but within a few months a terrible car crash threatened to derail the life that she was forging for herself. 
Louise broke her back and permanently lost the use of her legs, and she was told that the silver screen was no longer a place for her.
But Louise fought to get back to work, and thrived on Australian television sets for years until she did something else that people told her was impossible -- she became a mother.
Only after Louise became a mother did she have the perspective to deeply talk to her father, who was driving the car when it crashed all those years ago, about grief, guilt and forgiveness.
This episode of Conversations was first broadcast in 2024.
The producer was Nicola Harrison and the executive producer was Carmel Rooney.
It explores disability, tv acting, Australian television, disability access, discrimination, grief, guilt, motherhood, family, love, tragedy, resilience, forgiveness.

As a little girl growing up in Brisbane in the era of the White Australia policy, Lindy lived through the pain of always feeling different but then she began using it as fuel for her art. (R)
It took her many years to find the power in what she calls the 'tearing' in her identity.
She began to make work based on her own family story, and her Zen practice.
Lindy is now one of Australia's leading contemporary artists.
This episode of Conversations was first broadcast in 2022

Growing up in Tokyo, Hiroko Yoda never thought of herself as religious, but after her mother died, she began exploring the spiritual traditions of Japan.
She was inspired by the Shinto idea that there are '8 million spiritual beings', animating everything we encounter.
In the different practices of Shintoism, Buddhism, and Shugendo, Hiroko found practical means of emotional support, and also ways of making her everyday life more beautiful.
Further informationHiroko's book is called Eight Million Ways to Happiness
She will be appearing at this year's  Sydney Writers' Festival