Denise Ho was always going to be an activist. The canto-pop superstar had built a massively successful music career and could’ve continued on her path of major-label success. But, in 2012, she became the first mainstream female singer in Hong Kong to come out as gay, and was promptly abandoned by much of the industry. She responded by setting up her own label and becoming a high-profile advocate for the LGBTQI community. In 2014, when huge pro-democracy protests broke out in Hong Kong,...

Not a lot of women get to practice law in Afghanistan, but attorney Kimberly Motley is one of the very few. Raised in a poor, majority black neighbourhood in Milwaukee in America’s midwest, Kimberly has made a career defending particularly difficult cases, and in learning how to navigate the Afghani legal system, she has also developed a unique understanding of inter-cultural approaches to justice. She’s talking to Benjamin Law at Antidote festival in 2019.  

When 24 Year old Zadie Smith published her debut novel, White Teeth, in 2000, she became an instant literary superstar. Two decades and several more novels, short story and essay collections later, her voice remains every bit as relevant. Never one to follow a trend, her writing has earned a reputation for originality and intellectual independence. Head of Talks and Ideas Edwina Throsby spoke to Zadie Smith when she was visiting the Sydney Opera House in November 2019.

Hello I’m Edwina Throsby Head of Talks and Ideas at Sydney Opera House and I’m here with some excellent news: this week we’re launching our new season of the podcast “it’s a long story”, where you can go deep with iconic writer Zadie Smith, Cantopop superstar and human rights activist Denise Ho, Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lukashenko, and loads more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. 

Uncover fascinating stories of the Opera House’s rich cultural heritage and design legacy in our new podcast series exploring the building as a work of art, the artwork within it, as well as the decade of renewal and how we are transforming our icon for the 21st century and future generations. Available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.  sydneyoperahouse.com/digital/podcasts/house-stories

Jess Hill & Sanam Maher Jess Hill and Sanam Maher, expert journalists on gendered abuse, come together in a cross cultural discussion to unpack male entitlement and female vulnerability. Hosted by Gina Rushton.

Sometimes just a few words can change everything, but for many women, speaking up isn't easy. Join these powerhouses who found the courage to call out injustice, and be inspired to find your own voice.   Featuring Clementine Ford and Flex Mami and hosted by Edwina Throsby. 

Feminists get a bad rap for being angry. But what would it be like if women were allowed to embrace their anger? American writer Soraya Chemaly has been calling for this shift for years. Her latest book, Rage Becomes Her is a celebration of female anger.

Sohaila Abdulali did not want to write a book about her experience of being raped. It was a long time ago and she’d very much moved on with her life. But, after some articles she’d written about it went viral, she did write a book. 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape' is an incredible, genre-defying discussion of the troubling ways that rape and sexual violence are experienced and discussed. With no self-pity but much insight and a joyous character, she brings sensible, open thinking...

How we define ourselves comes from a place of difference. At least that's what Carolin Emcke writes about in her book, How We Desire, which investigates gender and identity. But her own identity? Now that’s more complicated. Emcke has been reporting from war zones since the early 2000s, where she's witnessed and written about some of the most horrific acts humans are capable of. She is a fearless and completely original thinker on all things from the effect that atrocity has on those who are...

Sarah Smarsh is the daughter of a teenaged mother, who was the daughter of a teenaged mother, who was the daughter of a teenaged mother. Born into a dirt-poor family in rural Kansas, Smarsh realised young that if she could get educated and not pregnant, she would be able to break the pattern of the women in her family. Her memoir, Heartland, is a wonderful tribute to those women, as well as a proud  insider’s look into a culture that is often mocked, reviled and misunderstood, and a searing...

Joan Morgan grew up in the Bronx alongside a growing hip hop movement in the 1980s. Coming of age in the 90s, as hip hop became an international cultural phenomenon, Joan Morgan became one of the first women to write about hip hop for magazines. In 1999, Morgan coined the term “hip-hop feminism” in her groundbreaking book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost which applied a feminist lens to a nortoriously sexist genre. More recently, she penned a definitive analysis of The Miseducation of...

Tina Tchen doesn't remember the first time she met the Obamas. But what she does remember is the ground-breaking policies that she worked on with both Barack and Michelle during their time in the White House. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Tina has forged a top-notch career as a lawyer, activist and advocate, and has been focused on gender equity issues for over three decades, while raising two kids as a single mother. After #metoo she set up the legal defence fund for the group Time's...

In this special episode of It’s a Long Story, host and ANTIDOTE festival curator Edwina Throsby is interviewed by Sydney Morning Herald Editor Lisa Davies about the 2019 festival. Discover the lineup here: https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/festivals/antidote.html

Adam Liaw understands how Australian families eat. Emigrating to South Australia from Malaysia in the 1980s his childhood was a delicious mix of international cuisines. Adam’s precocious smarts fast-tracked his academic career, and landed him at law school well ahead of schedule. Moving to Japan in his twenties to work at Disney Asia, he was settling into Japanese culture. But everything changed when he applied on a whim for the second season of Masterchef Australia. Ten years, six books and...

When Liz Jackson woke up one morning back in 2012 unable to feel her legs, her life radically changed direction. Diagnosed with a neuromuscular disease, Liz left her successful career in television to become a designer and activist, devoted to improving design for disabled people across the world. Her blog, The Girl with the Purple Cane, and her organisation The Disabled List, brings the unique insights and skills of disabled people and designers into the broader design conversation. Show...

It’s hard to remember what we used to cook before Yotam Ottolenghi burst into our culinary consciousness. His brand of colourful, vegetable-based food has transformed kitchens and tables the world over. Born in Jerusalem, Yotam was set to pursue an academic career after completing a master’s degree in comparative literature. However at age 30 he decided to move to London to become a chef, and his future was rewritten. His London restaurants have become cult destinations, his cookbooks are on...

As a hugely successful journalist and writer, and the founder of the international diet and lifestyle empire I Quit Sugar, Sarah Wilson might seem like the poster girl for perfect health. Yet anxiety and bipolar disorder have been with her throughout her life and career. Growing up in rural Australia in a big, poor family, she has always been driven to overachieve, editing national magazines, hosting the first season of Masterchef, writing a series of bestselling cookbooks, and amassing a...

Walking through Kew Gardens in London with his family was formative for polymath, writer and tree-lover Jonathan Drori. With a career bridging engineering and broadcasting, he was part of the trailblazing team which created the very first iteration of BBC online, surfed the crest of the dotcom boom, and created a whole lot of very good BBC television programs. Yet the pull of the natural world held strong, and his book, Around the World in 80 Trees, explores the unique relationship of human...

What Lisa-Ann Gershwin does not know about jellyfish probably doesn’t count, and no one gets quite as excited about gelatinous medusas as she does. Raised in California by hippie parents, her undiagnosed Asperger’s syndrome marked her an outsider during childhood. It wasn’t until she fell in love with marine biology that she started to find her way. Now an internationally recognised scientist, researcher and author, she has personally discovered 200 species of jellyfish and counting. And...

Kevin McCloud had a childhood where everything was built from scratch, and his home was more like a workshop. So it’s no surprise that the built world eventually became the focus of his life and work. Yet in his earlier years Kevin wore many different hats, from working in an Italian vineyard, studying music, designing sets for the Cambridge theatre troupe the Footlights, owning a lighting design shop and designing the famous ceiling of the Harrods Food Hall in London. While this eclectic mix...

When the war in Syria was tearing apart their home city of Homs, architect Marwa Al-Sabouni and her husband made the decision to stay there with their two young children, rather than to become refugees. In her memoir, The Battle for Home, she writes about the experience of continuing daily life in a battle zone, and of the importance of architecture in determining the fates of cities. Marwa’s work now is concerned with the impact of conflict on urban environments, and the possibilities that...